Travelogue 1149 – 1 November
Dark Edges

The darkness over the water is eloquent. It is not silent. The water laps there; the boats’ engines roar. The darkness does not speak, but it is expressive. In the distance, the city lights are chattering. The waters are watchful, and they keep their counsel.

The evening falls quickly over the lagoon. It is autumn, and the season’s night comes on early. We have travelled across the water to the island of Murano. We sat for snacks and drinks in a square there as the day drew to a close, the sky above the piazza changing colour, becoming violet and losing its light.

Afterward, we rode the water bus back to Venice in night. The lagoon was rung round with the yellow lights of towns and roads, but the blackness ate up all the space between. Lights were reflected upon the waves, then the darkness ate them again. Ahead, Venice was sparsely underlit, as though asleep already, brick towers over the jumble of rooftops, their white stone highlights, their history, obscured by the night.

There was life in the streets. It was early. But the crowds had dwindled. The people walking had purpose, as though, night drawing on, they must get home. Crossing bridges, we came upon darkness again. Canals that featured no access, where buildings walls dropped into the water, had no lighting. Shadows fell precipitously off the bridges. Above, there were ancient buildings we passed that had no lights in any windows. Many seemed abandoned above the ground-floor shops.

La Serenissima emerges from the shadows, the ancient city still there underneath the noise of the jaundiced lights of the modern.