603: People at Night

Last night was Saturday. Actually that is not entirely accurate. What I should have said was "Yesterday was Saturday, last night was Saturday night". Or words to that general purpose. Yesterday was Saturday night and I spent it in West Didsbury, Manchester (i.e. The area sometimes unfairly dismissed by twats as not being 'proper Didsbury') playing WWE13 on the X-Box360. Attitude Era! As it approached bedtime I left Didsbury for my bed in Old Trafford. This required getting a bus at around 9.30pm down Palatine/Wilmslow/Oxford Road into Manchester, then changing to another bus on the corner of Oxford Street and Portland Street. By then the time was approaching 10pm.

Imagine my surprise when, despite the late hour, all the areas listed above were swarming with human life. It was almost as if a mass delusion had hit the city whereby thousands of people were suddenly convinced it was daytime and should commence wandering around in the dark when they should have been getting ready for bed. Down the section of Wilmslow Road running through Rusholme, commonly known as 'Curry Mile', hundreds of poor people were suffering under the delusion that it was their tea-time. I saw them through windows sat a tables eating food and laughing and drinking despite the time, around about 10o'clock at night, let me remind you. It was a disturbing sight.

I can only hope and pray that this shocking occurrence was a one-off, an isolated event, because the alternative truly does not bare thinking about it. But let's try. What if this has happened before, or will happen again? People out at night, in the dark, working, eating, socialising, as houses and beds lay empty all across Manchester? Is this a dark portent for a future where humanity roams the earth by moonlight and sleeps during the hours of sun-up? Where vitamin D deficiency is the silent killer as we all wobble and totter around on long bendy bones?

Come to think of it there did seem to be a lot of people struggling to walk in straight lines or even simply stand still unassisted. Some women, and indeed men, appeared unnaturally tall. I, at five feet and six inches, am of average height and there did appear to be a disproportionately high number of people taller than me. Weird. From there it's only a few steps to the tall wobbly nocturnal people becoming the norm and then where does that leave me … ? … I am Legend …

This is a cry to the people of Manchester back through time to last night: Don't give in to the primal urge, that awful voice inside of you commanding you to leave your homes as though it were daytime when you should be sleeping. Pray that this foul scourge does not spread to other cities. Oh, why did this have to happen in Manchester of all places?