Have you ever listened to the sound of darkness, when everything is quiet and somehow everything becomes so much clearer? When the noise of the day has finally stopped and you can hear things you normally don’t notice. When even the ugly buildings look pretty because their cracked walls are masked in the darkness, and somehow the whole city looks prettier than it does during the day.

I don’t fear darkness. I love the night. I love how black overpowers everything else. I have insomnia, so I rarely sleep at night. Maybe that’s why black and night have become a part of who I am. I look outside my window at all those dirty streets, all those dilapidated buildings with moss growing on the walls, and try to find them in the darkness. But somehow, they are lost. I know where they are, and yet they look so different at night. They look beautiful because their faults are hidden.

But with night and darkness, something more happens than just hiding the faults. Night brings with it a calmness that allows you space and time to think. It’s that time of the day when you don’t need to rush to be anywhere.

I have always thought about the places people go when they don’t want to go anywhere. What do you do when you don’t want to do anything? Not because something particularly terrible has happened, or because you are sad, or because you are happy. Sometimes you just don’t want to go home yet. You don’t necessarily want company either. You just want to be somewhere else for a while.

There is a show on Netflix called Midnight Diner, about a little diner that opens at midnight for people who don’t want to go home after work. I like the idea of that place. People come in at strange hours, sometimes alone, sometimes with someone, and they eat, talk, listen or don’t talk at all. It’s a cozy little diner where you can simply sit without having to explain why you are there. Nobody seems particularly concerned about where you have come from or where you are going next. You are there, and for that little while, that seems to be enough.

I was thinking about it while reading a Japanese book recently (yes, I do love Japanese literature a lot). I have only just started it, so I don’t really know what happens yet, but there is a girl called Mari who spends the night sitting in a café reading a book. She isn’t meeting anyone and, as far as I can tell, she isn’t waiting for anyone either. She is just sitting there and reading through the night. Around her, people come and go at random hours. Someone is reading another book, someone is texting on their phone, and someone is sitting by the window, staring out into the cold, dark night.

While reading through it, I imagined myself to be Mari and wondered what those people were doing there.

What makes someone sit in a café at two in the morning, doing nothing but looking out of a window? What are they thinking about? Are they waiting for the night to pass? Are they avoiding going home? Did something happen that day? Or is there really no reason at all, and sometimes we just need somewhere to sit?

Perhaps we all have places like that, even if they aren’t cafés or diners. Places where we go when we don’t really know where else to go. It could be sitting in the car for an hour after reaching home, because somehow getting out of the car feels like one more thing you have to do. It could be walking around the supermarket long after you’ve finished shopping, because you don’t feel like going back yet. It could be sitting on a bench, reading the same page of a book over and over again while watching people pass by.

I recently started taking the bus to and fro from the office. I have a car, but I just wanted to get away from that fast-paced, rushed life. With a bus, it gives me a calming feeling. I cannot rush; the bus is not in my hands. I wait at the stop, watch others waiting with me, sit in the bus and do my reading, or just look outside, watching the streets go by. I cannot hurry. I’m not driving, so I let go. I sit and calmly wait for my stop to come.

Being surrounded by strangers makes it easier sometimes. You can be completely alone without feeling as though you are alone. Nobody knows you. Nobody knows what kind of day you’ve had or what you are thinking about. Nobody is expecting you to talk, smile, explain yourself or be a particular version of yourself.

You can just be there.

Maybe that’s why places like the Midnight Diner feel so appealing. They give people somewhere to be in that strange space between wanting to be alone and not wanting to feel lonely. You can sit across from someone without knowing anything about them. You can listen to the conversations around you without being part of them. You can watch someone leave and wonder where they are going, and then wonder about your own life for a while.

And perhaps the night makes all of this easier.

During the day, everything feels very definite. Buildings are ugly buildings, streets are crowded streets, people are going somewhere and you are supposed to be going somewhere too. There is always something to do, somewhere to be, someone to answer.

At night, everything becomes a little less certain.

The same buildings look different. The same streets become quieter. People disappear behind their windows. You can look out into the darkness and imagine all the lives happening behind those little squares of light. Someone is probably having an argument. Someone is making dinner. Someone is reading. Someone is crying. Someone is laughing. Someone is lying in bed wondering what they are doing with their life.

And somewhere, there is probably someone sitting in a café, reading a book because they don’t want to go home yet.

I don’t know why Mari doesn’t want to leave. I haven’t read enough to know. Maybe I’ll find out, maybe I won’t. But I like the thought of her sitting there through the night, watching all these strangers come and go, each of them with somewhere they are supposed to be but choosing, for a few hours, to be somewhere else.

Maybe sometimes we don’t need to know where we are going.

Maybe we just need somewhere to sit until we feel like going.