Helga Davis

Wait, you're listening?

Okay.

Alright.

You're listening to Radiolab.

Radiolab.

From WNYC.

At first, they're drawn to the views at night, the gorgeous encrusting of city lights and the surface dazzle of man-made things.

There's something so crisp and clear and purposeful about the earth by night, its thick embroidered urban tapestries,

Almost every mile of Europe's coastline is inhabited, and the whole continent outlined with fine precision the city's constellations joined by the golden thread of roads.

Those same golden threads track across the Alps, usually grayish blue with snowfall.

At night, they can point to home.

There's Seattle, Osaka, London, Bologna, St.

Petersburg, and Moscow.

Moscow, one enormous point of light like the pole star in a shrill, clear sky.

The night's electric excess takes their breath, the spread of life, the way the planet proclaims to the abyss.

There is something and someone here, and how for all that, a sense of friendliness and peace prevails.

Since even at night, there's only one man-made border in the whole of the world.

A long trail of lights between Pakistan and India.

That's all civilization has to show for its divisions.

And by day, even that is gone.