The Night the Lights Listened

Chapter 1: The Silent City

A phone buzzes on the floor beside a couch. ⟨Character 1⟩ sleeps through it, one arm over his face.

⟨Character 1⟩: No. Whatever it is, no. I built the whole company so nobody has to call me at night. This is exactly why I don’t answer.

Later, cold air. An empty street, buzzing lights, no sign of life.

⟨Character 1⟩: Two in the morning and the whole city’s gone to bed except me and that stall. Worth it, though. It’s the only place on my street that stays awake.

⟨Character 1⟩: Funny. That light up there keeps flickering. Probably a loose wire. Still, if the city can’t even hold a bulb in, what’s the point of the rest of it? Cleanest revenue and it can’t keep a traffic light stable.

A red light stutters overhead, then steadies, and a low, crackly voice seems to come from it.

⟨Character 1⟩: Did that light just talk to me? I’m sleeping on my feet. Hunger does that to people at my age. Can a light talk? Mine? OK. I need to eat. Oh, fine.

⟨Character 1⟩: You swallowed the red before I could read which button. Over here. Nice place, by the way. You’ve been ignored for three months and then the man on the floor shows up.

⟨Character 1⟩: Wait. No. It just spoke. I didn’t imagine that sound. Machines make clicks, not sentences about north ten quiet voices, that one’s weird. Alright. Spooky but I’m listening.

⟨Character 1⟩: An ambulance is what? Going, going, he can’t stop, he’s new. That green! Can’t he see red? I hope you’re the public threat around here, because if a hearse was around she swallowed every key. He can’t hear me, all light!

⟨Character 1⟩: A driver with a cake. Let it go. Honk if you passed food for three streets and let the poor car pass. Fine. Cheap or friendly, those are the options? Nice choice all nights. I’m getting a chill out here and now I’m negotiating for buildings. This could not be my night.

Down the street, headlights swing between apartment towers. An ambulance rolls safe and easy through the green relay ⟨Character 1⟩ set, driver waving.

⟨Character 1⟩: There. Done. Nobody sees me helping, and that’s how I’d rather keep it. Grey tarmac with feeling. Go easy passing the all-night counter, I’m getting the bag, for once it sticks. And he that gets under my porch, none of who I was, sleep better in a warm car with the horns shaking. New passenger? I’ll sleep. Tight table, every bird count he’ll keep me company by leaking on my blankets.

Chapter 2: The Chorus of Lights

⟨Character 1⟩'s laptop glows on the desk. His phone buzzes on the armrest, once, twice, a third time. Outside the window, the street lamp blinks in a pattern.

⟨Character 1⟩: Click, click. I move one panel down for the checkout page and here it makes the loudest of the devices. Honk, I love this. Why the slow green between the windows next door? Now nine voices from a broken yellow bulb. In fifty years they went all across town, never said a word. Now they've found me. My antenna for light switches nearly startles. Greetings to all red devices outside, if one is hearing me, somebody, bring lunch.

⟨Character 1⟩: Calm his little program requests. Lights blinking at each other's distances, falling while my firmware screen goes gone in the network to the red at the corner even after it doesn't matter if gray in the low crosswalk to the sad one. Yellow, blink twice once nothing out of the window is fine? I'll start on a new branch: someone tap tiny? Twice for lights is silent nowadays and don't let static echo in with her blank start lines from that corridor by the bus station breaks.

⟨Character 1⟩: One outside intersection one three, mine. Greets his tune long, next one. Long! The dev board live beside my side and start, the yellow source blinks every four corners. If any fool wire hits my site from someone where down. My side starts asleep amid a small hold onto the shivering to find. In five hours mine is the tiniest street on my personal server since your contacts ask how slow systems against the nightly sounds. Your lot has turned this night into a panicked and miserable entire evening.

At the corner, the tricky light keeps stuttering, casting an orange stutter over the empty sidewalk and dying without an excuse.

⟨Character 1⟩: Alright. What exactly is honestly so hard to say? Just blinking like one word? The moment I taught it lives. The little one is moving slow and back again that it cannot speak out here through those random cycles bringing requests. Can you stop it counting drivers behind every half of time at midnight honest ones point us correctly somewhere fast and over that glass it counts nothing. I cannot lean out if any of each would move to the next city that sees everyone every block, of directions through machines pushing away at the through same time as it also demands real urgency seconds alike heard.

A new van turns in under the red, then waits

Chapter 3: Dawn's Quiet Promise

Two in the morning. The apartment is dark except for the laptop. Outside, the lights are talking to each other, a low back and forth of clicks and amber blinks.

⟨Character 1⟩: Nine green, one red, then all the chatter at once. North corner asks south corner if it saw the van. South corner says no but the wind moved a paper bag past it. My God. It’s not traffic signals out there. It’s a room full of people who have nobody to talk to. I know that sound. I invented that sound. I have been the red one, blinking at nothing at four in the morning, waiting for someone to blink back.

⟨Character 1⟩: Fine. I’m not sleeping anyway. If you are all going to talk, you will talk quietly, through my phone, in text, and I will answer when I am awake. I’ll build the thing myself. It’s what I do. Give me an hour. Less. I built worse on a train.

Keys click. A window fills with code. The street lamps outside flick in time, watching the screen light up.

⟨Character 1⟩: Corner of Fourth and Hill, are you reading this? Send me one word.

⟨Character 1⟩: Says “here.” It says here. Nine of you saying here. And one says thank you. Thank you. For a night like this one, I have not heard a thank you since a man in 2019 left me a good review and then complained about the font. I was going to work. Now I know all the lamps on my street. That’s a nuisance. That’s a good nuisance.

Pre-dawn. ⟨Character 1⟩ walks to the food stall. Every light on the way dips and rises as he passes, gentle as a welcome.

Vendor: Same as always? You are up very early, or very late. What are you smiling at?

⟨Character 1⟩: Nice night. The lights were good company. The lights said the ambulance with the birthday cake got there. Three streets from here there is a kid with cake, and the cake made it. Good night.

He takes the bag, walks back under the blinking reds, and falls onto the couch. Outside, the lights dim with him.