Beneath the city lights

Things That Glow in the Dark

The tunnels always looked different after rain.

Water seeped through the smallest cracks, streaking the walls in silver veins. Every drip caught the light from Aidan’s headlamp, a thousand tiny reflections moving as he walked. It was the closest thing to stars he saw anymore.

He liked these nights. The damp carried a kind of calm. The dust settled, the air smelled faintly clean. Even the noise softened—a low, steady hum that folded around him instead of pushing back.

Tonight’s task was simple: check the line lights along the eastern curve. Half of them had burned out last week, leaving the section black between trains. People didn’t think much about the lights that guided their commute, but Aidan did. Darkness in a tunnel felt heavier than darkness anywhere else. It had weight, texture, depth.

He worked slowly, ladder balanced against the wall, new bulbs clipped to his belt. Each replacement flared to life with a faint pop, scattering yellow glow through the damp air. He moved methodically—step, replace, secure, step again—building a small constellation one lamp at a time.

The sound of his breathing filled the space. When he paused, he could hear the rails cooling, metal ticking as it shrank. The city’s heartbeat at rest.

Halfway down the line, he switched off the last broken lamp and stood in the dark for a moment.

Only his own headlamp glowed now, the beam cutting through dust. The new bulbs behind him glimmered like a trail of fireflies.

It reminded him of something he couldn’t name—maybe a night long ago, maybe the feeling of watching a sky through smoke. The memory didn’t form completely; it just brushed against him, then slipped away.

He tightened the strap of his bag and moved on.

At the junction, Rico was waiting, crouched beside a crate of new fixtures. “You’ve been down here all night?”

Aidan checked his watch. “Close enough.”

“You’re like the ghost of this place, man. I swear you don’t go home.”

Aidan shrugged. “Home’s not much different.”

Rico laughed, but it came out tired. He wiped his forehead with his sleeve, leaving a smear of soot. “You ever notice how quiet it gets right before the first train?”

Aidan nodded. “That’s the best part.”

“Creeps me out,” Rico said. “Feels like the city’s holding its breath.”

“It is.”

They both looked down the line. The tunnel stretched empty, silent, waiting. Somewhere far away, air pressure shifted—the faint warning of movement.

Aidan stepped back, shoulder brushing the wall. “Train coming.”

The ground began to tremble. A distant roar built into thunder. The maintenance lights flickered once as the test car passed through another section. When the train burst into view, wind slammed through the tunnel, snapping their jackets. For an instant, the world turned to blur and sound. Then it was gone, leaving only the echo and a single bulb swinging wildly overhead.

Rico exhaled. “Every time. Gets me every damn time.”

Aidan steadied the lamp until it stopped swaying. “You’ll get used to it.”

“Don’t want to,” Rico said, grinning. “It’s the only thing that reminds me I’m alive.”

Aidan didn’t answer. He just looked down the track at the trail of glowing bulbs he’d replaced. They pulsed faintly as the vibrations faded, like a heartbeat returning to normal.

By the time they returned to the surface, dawn was bleeding into the sky. Clouds moved fast, streaks of steel blue over the rooftops. The rain had stopped hours ago, but puddles still clung to the pavement.

Rico yawned so hard it made his eyes water. “Breakfast?”

Aidan hesitated. He almost said no. He always said no. But something about the morning felt lighter—the clean smell of wet asphalt, the faint shimmer of daylight on the tracks behind them.

“Sure,” he said.

Rico blinked. “You serious?”

“Once won’t kill me.”

They found a diner two blocks from the yard, one of those places that never closed but never really opened either. The neon sign buzzed like a dying insect. Inside, the booths were cracked vinyl and the air smelled of coffee, grease, and heat.

Rico ordered pancakes. Aidan stuck with black coffee.

For a while they sat in silence, each absorbed in the noise of plates and the radio mumbling behind the counter. When the waitress left, Rico leaned forward.

“Why’d you leave the department?”

Aidan didn’t look up. “Which one?”

“You know which.”

The question landed like grit in his throat. He stirred the coffee, watching the swirl instead of answering.

Rico caught the cue and backed off. “Sorry. None of my business.”

“It’s fine.” Aidan set the spoon down. “Things happen. You move on.”

“Yeah,” Rico said quietly. “Guess we all do.”

They finished in silence. When they left, the city had woken fully—horns, voices, movement everywhere. Aidan felt the shift immediately, the hum pressing against his skin. The world above was too loud, too bright.

He said a quick goodbye and turned toward home.

The apartment greeted him with still air and pale light. He hung his jacket, emptied his pockets, set his notebook on the counter. The smell of damp cloth rose from his sleeves.

He wrote:

Replaced 47 bulbs. Light looks different after rain.

Then he sat back, pen tapping the paper. The word light stared up at him, simple but heavier than it should be. He added another line beneath it:

Some things only shine when broken first.

He didn’t know why he wrote that. He closed the book before he could think too hard about it.

The kettle hissed on the stove. He poured water over instant coffee and stood by the window while it cooled. Outside, the street shimmered with reflected sky. Across the alley, someone shook out a rug, dust drifting in sunlight like gold. The sight made him smile—not joy, just acknowledgment.

He slept briefly, the kind of shallow rest that felt more like waiting. When he woke again, the day was already sliding into evening.

He washed, changed, and left early for his next shift.

The air underground smelled different now—warmer, tinged with ozone. Ortega said they were running electrical tests along the southern line, and half the crew was nervous about shorts.

Aidan took the section near the old junction alone. The light was dimmer there; the walls still carried the memory of water. As he passed, he noticed one of the new bulbs flickering faintly. He touched it, tightened the socket. The glow steadied.

Farther ahead, a puddle reflected the light back at him. His face shimmered in the water, fractured by ripples from a drop falling overhead. For a second, the reflection looked like someone else—a face half-lit, half-burned by memory. He blinked it away.

He reached the power junction and crouched to check the meters. The readings pulsed steady. Satisfied, he sat back against the wall, just listening.

The city’s hum filled the space, layered and deep. Air vents sighed above, and somewhere far off, a rat scurried through debris. The kind of silence that wasn’t quiet at all.

He closed his eyes. Behind them, the darkness wasn’t empty; it glowed faintly, a film of red light, the same color as the inside of his eyelids when the world caught fire years ago.

He opened them again quickly, drew a slow breath, and let it out through his teeth.

The sound of footsteps approached—the distinct scrape of boots. Rico’s voice echoed from the corridor. “You hiding from us again, old man?”

Aidan smirked faintly. “You’re twenty-three. That makes everyone else old.”

Rico dropped a coil of cable beside him and sat down. “Ortega says we’re clear for the night. I told him I’d find you before he marked you missing.”

“Appreciate it.”

They sat there a while, side by side, watching the lights hum. The glow bounced off the wet floor, flickering in their eyes.

“You ever think about what keeps this city running?” Rico asked.

Aidan gestured around. “This.”

“Yeah, but… bigger than that. Like, the people who never stop. Cops, janitors, drivers, us. Nobody sees it, but it’s all moving.”

“That’s the point,” Aidan said. “If they saw it, it’d mean something broke.”

Rico chuckled. “You always got the bleak version of wisdom.”

“Just the realistic one.”

A burst of static crackled from the radio on Rico’s belt. Ortega’s voice filtered through, half drowned by interference.

“Test complete. Shut it down and head back.”

Rico stood, brushing off his knees. “Come on. Let’s go before he starts counting heads.”

Aidan didn’t move immediately. He watched the line of bulbs stretch into the distance, their light soft and uncertain. “You go ahead. I’ll lock the panel.”

Rico nodded and disappeared down the tunnel, his light shrinking to a dot, then nothing.

Aidan knelt to secure the last latch, then lingered again in the glow. He traced a finger along the damp concrete, feeling the faint warmth where the lights bled against the wall.

He thought about all the things that glowed in the dark—these bulbs, the faint shimmer of puddles, the eyes of rats, the reflection of a flame that lived only in memory.

None of it lasted. But it was enough to see by.

He picked up his bag and started walking back toward the surface. The bulbs flickered behind him, their light chasing his shadow until it disappeared into the curve of the tunnel.

Outside, the sky was clear for the first time in days. Stars showed faintly between buildings, fragile and far. Aidan tilted his head up, studying them the way other people studied faces.

They didn’t look so different from the tunnel lights. Distant sparks keeping the dark from swallowing everything.

He kept walking until the noise of the city folded over him again—the sound he knew best, the sound that meant he was still here.