The city is… concrete and grime. Pigeons and cars. Dust in the gutters, and at night there are no stars. Just a dirty orange glow from hundreds upon hundreds upon hundreds of streetlamps.

The city is waking up to frost on the windows. Graffiti on the bus seats, as indecipherable as some archaic language. Lost property at train stations and “Report suspicious luggage” announcements. The city is distrusting. The city hurries past with hands in pockets and headphones in ears. Nobody says it, but secretly everyone fears the rucksack sitting on its own.

But the city is home. It is not quiet country roads and villages where you know everyone’s name. It is vast and loud, and it never stays the same for too long. You’re never the last one left awake. There’s always something to take your mind off whatever weighs you down. It’s ever growing, but has history. Lives of peasants and criminal and revolutionaries are knotted in to the streets. Wherever your feet tread there are millions that have stepped there before. Whatever your eyes see millions of others already saw. The city is multilayered and dense. The city is past and present tense. The city is lit with candle-flame lives from every corner of the world that, given time, end up flickering together in the same apartment blocks.

The city is the one place where even when you’re lonely, you’re never alone. The city is living! The city is home.