Carpet of Stars

Living in one of the flats of a 30-storey building (and I repeat... for free!), gives me the chance to perceive everything below as if I were a hundred feet tall.

When darkness has enveloped the entire space outside the building, only the lights shimmer in the darkness. Yellowish lights along the highways, white lights from tower cranes, villas and palace fences (yes, I have a far view of a few palaces of sheikhs and sheikhas), reddish lights from power generators at the construction sites, and bluish lights from the buildings under construction at a far distance. Add to that the multi-coloured lights from the other towers, the changing colours of traffic lights, and the lights of passing cars that one can see in hundreds at a glance. Especially when I'm not using my eyeglasses, all these lights in different hues don't look like they emanate from man-made lightbulbs. They look like stars that have fallen from the evening sky!

Sometimes, the real stars in the sky appear and sometimes they don't. Somehow, it doesn't matter that much.
I know they're still there, hiding behind the winter clouds.

At night, there's one thing I do that has become a habit... I always stop by my bedroom window even for a few seconds and take a deep breath. This is the wondrous view that renders me mute as I gaze outside and a carpet of stars spreads before my eyes.


... carpet of stars ...