The sun sets over spires of steel and monuments of old concrete. Long shadows stretch across the city, before darkness swallows all.

In a moment, an infant’s eyes close, and softly she sleeps through the night.

Many other children’s’ eyes burst open as the light fades, and cry out for their tired and trying parents in fear and surprise.

A printing press works tirelessly, printing the final edition of an old, beloved newspaper. Later, it prints the many papers that drove the first out of business.

A sudden wind startles a black cat; it skitters from its rooftop home and leaps away. Misjudging the distance to the neighbouring building, it plummets to the ground, yowling as it falls. It hisses as it lands, then scampers away into the night.

A man berates his wife for an act she isn’t sure she committed, and a crime he isn’t sure is illegal. The door slams loud in the quiet air as she leaves, suitcase rattling behind her.

A child of eighteen gets down to one knee and proposes to the woman his parents hate. She screams out yes. This is the last night either of them will know the other’s touch.

An angry gale builds in the South and whistles between the towering blocks of stone and glass; an old advertisement for a long ended event is sent tumbling down an empty road.

Yellow lights shine from but a single window of an office block; a young woman works desperately to finish a pivotal proposal. The contract was abandoned weeks ago; she is yet to be informed.

A fight breaks out between two brothers as arbitrary trivia is called into question. A table is upturned, an embrace occurs, and new beers are cracked open.

The cold air freezes a set of exposed pipes solid; the old woman on the third floor sighs as her bath is disturbed.

Hundreds find passion in the arms of lovers, be they partners, friends, or newly met strangers. Twenty-three conceptions follow. Of them, fifteen will be born, and only four are wanted. One will not be a burden upon its parents.

The life of an ancient man silently ends; his sleeping breaths catch, then stop. He will not be discovered until his rent is late, three weeks from this night.

Across a table six aging millionaires make a deal. Its implications will be felt for generations, but these have not been considered.

A gathering of the young and hopeful in a rarely used park is disrupted by a police car pulling up nearby. The officers find no youths; but twenty abandoned bottles, a handbag full of transient things, and a magazine none above the age of seventeen can comprehend. The media will only focus on the knife; the knife that never existed, yet could have been used in some fatal drunken brawl.

The sun makes its gentle ascent into the heavens as a new day begins. Light pierces the windows of the slumberous. The city wakes, and its residents soon follow. Few are aware of the night’s events, as the dreams fade and the real world comes into focus.