​​​​​​​I remember once driving with a buddy to his home during a break from college. Of course we drove late, and popped off the main roads. I have no idea what we were driving, but that didn’t matter.

One night, very late, we drove into a very small town, the kind with a main street one block long. It had like three streetlights trying vainly to illuminate the city’s heart. There were no sounds. Almost everything was gray. There was no movement. The gas station and general store were long closed, but they’d left an outdoor light on, and it showed the red Coca Cola sign, some beer logo.

We pulled into the main intersection. My buddy was driving, and he stopped.
To my surprise, he got out of the car and took a few steps away from it, leaving his door open. I was scared at first, but there was just nothing around and I quickly figured out why he stopped.

It was too beautiful, too full of mystery, too dripping with pathos.

Were there cops around patrolling somewhere? Maybe, but they weren’t there.
Was everyone asleep? Probably.

You get used to a thing you see every day and you don’t see it anymore. The dark dangerous possibilities of night are only in the big city down the road, not here. There were no prowlers in the shadows, no wolves padding down the streets and cutting through back yards. Not here.

The wildest thing that happened here in a long time were a couple of college kids driving through, who, for some strange reason, stopped on main street at the stop sign. Stupid kids.

What were they even doing going through our town late at night? Stupid kids.

My buddy was grinning ear to ear. He could feel the magic.

I confess I was scared, but his enthusiasm was contagious. I could feel the magic too, a little.
After a long minute, he took a long sigh, climbed back in, and we drove off.

I have no idea where that city was, but I bet I could find a thousand of them across America. That is, if the night was right.