A Night in a Year: 31. Next Stage

[jacquelineb]

The breeze stills, and a true, gentle quiet falls upon her. She stretches both her legs out, letting the back end of her heels clack on the pavement. A satisfying sound, one that brings her back down to earth, to normality.

As if on cue, people begin to appear on King’s Parade. Two bikes sail past, the riders wearing academic in gowns, bats heading towards the belfries of Gonville and Caius or Trinity. A group of students come laughing from out of Senate House passage, and an elderly couple – a man carrying a walk stick, a woman holding his arms – hunched over, moving carefully past her place on the wall. The man smiles and nods at her, the woman inclines her head with easy grace.

So old fashioned. So Cambridge.

When they are near the gates of the Old Schools and the Senate House, she stands, and walks in their direction. She goes through the rising bollards that split King’s Parade where it turns into Trinity Street, where the asphalt narrows and begins to weave past colleges and shops encased in sandstone. The University Press is a glass shell encasing highbrow academia. Beyond it, Michael House café and church stands almost shyly across from the block of Gonville and Caius.

She knows there is a bar further down, past chic clothing stores, one that sinks into the ground. Now it feels like people are drawn to it, all the moving figures in the street drawn to the place as well. A crowd, a mass to get a little lost in.

Perfect for the next stage of the night.

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Next: 32. Queue

Image found on flickr, by Nick Stenning, used under the Creative Commons License.

Mirrored from jacquelinebrocker.esquinx.net.