Shady Heights, as he soon found out where he was called, was a gated-community. Every few blocks he would see a watchman. Patrol cars cruised down the lane, sometimes towards him; and each time he could see them he would flinch, take detours, and knowing why he acted in such furtive ways would make him feel like a common crook inside.

  Still, avoiding them was impossible; not without making himself look guilty; and once a patrolman drew his cruiser next to him, and asked him what a woman like her was doing out so late at night all by herself. Satou could only eke out a vague excuse, but ‘I was just on my way back, officer’ was good enough. He was told to be wary, and let go.

  Once out the great gates, his shoulders sagged in relief. Uptown, the watchful eyes grew lesser. Pedestrians began to reappear, but were still few and far between, and always on the other side of the road. Swift glances at each other’s passing figures were mutually exchanged, but beckoning them from so far to ask them for directions was too awkward to even attempt. Still, he tried, once, and when he was duly ignored, he couldn’t bring himself to do it again.

  In a dark inconspicuous corner far from any overhanging windows, he fished out what amounted to a little over five-thousand ducats from the billfold he had stolen. Converted to riyals, how much was that? He wasn’t sure. But given the prices he had glossed over at the bakery, five-thousand ducats was a sum neither large nor small.

  A part of him had hoped for a better haul, and here he had not struck gold; but he was not surprised. The billfold was worn, rugged, made out of cheap-leather, or maybe fake. It did not look like something someone wealthy would carry; and the fact that he had found it in a dark stairwell meant only for the staff to use further convinced him of this idea; and, at the same time, all this in truth, had damned him of a graver crime.

  Five thousand ducats was not a sum someone who earned his living on a day-to-day basis could afford to lose. It could’ve been all the victim had, given, that not everyone in a post-industrial society likely had a bank account, insurance, savings, or a safe place to keep all their money. Locked drawers were easy to get into, and inbetween piles of clothes in cabinets an obvious place to hide one’s safekeeping. Sometimes, the safest place was yourself.

  So had he pilfered from the rich, or robbed the poor? An irrelevant question to ask. Irrespective of how much harm he had caused, it was him having taking the easy way out made him here feel—regret? For why had he stolen when he had no need to? Yes, he did regret stealing that billfold. But it wasn’t too late to set things right. He could still go back, return the billfold where he had found it, and—No. Just the thought of going back there was enough to utterly demoralize him.

  “I’ll pay it back, I…”

  What was he muttering about? What a bold-faced lie. He knew he wasn’t going to pay it back. He just didn’t want to go back there. Anything but to do it all over again, especially when he had finally made some ground. And since he was already far from the scene of the crime, his answer wasn’t one too hard to give into. No, he would not go.

  The five-thousand ducats went straight into his wallet, neatly partitioned and now bulging in his back-pocket; and as for the billfold, he rubbed it against his coat to remove any evidence of fingerprints, because even though he wore gloves, he wasn’t taking any chances. Then he threw the billfold deep in an ashcan and stepped back onto the light.

  No buzz, no whirl—all the lights in the city suddenly went out; faded. Slowly, moonlight settled over the darkness, and it bathed the entire street and buildings silver. A city-wide blackout, from the looks of it; and all for the better. Darkness was safety. He could make out the path just fine, but finer details such as signage or people’s faces were an impossible feat.

  A familiar rhythm grew far-off in the distance. Towards him, he realized. He waited, and soon a tramcar revealed itself—foreboding with it’s headlights off—making a gradual bend at a T-point. Soon it passed him, and stopped not far in front. Three figures got out; two entered. Satou hadn’t planned on doing it, but he decided to board as well. He climbed up the steps, and overheard the tram conductor say that it was the ‘last one for the day’. He could vaguely guess what that meant.

  The two women who had entered earlier took the nearest seats: the front. Satou sat all the way at the back, far from the few commuters who were there so late, and propped his head up next to the glass. He carried no expectations as to where he might end up, nor did he care. He knew trams ran on a circuit; and secured in the knowledge that he could not get any more lost than he already was, rather than aimlessly wandering, this way, at least he could find a hotel if it chanced past.

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  Once the tram got moving, the toll-collector wearing a deep-blue livery got up and started taking fares. Clanking against his belt was a ticket-punch machine, which, to Satou, with its telephone dials, toggle switches, and a tiny valve on its side, looked out of place to be in a tram. Before long, it was his turn to pay.

  “How much does a ticket cost?” Satou asked.

  “Late tickets are a hundred, miss.”

  “Day, tickets?”

  “Seventy, miss.”

  Satou handed over his fare, and here something happened that could’ve been easily avoided. Because he wore gloves, he had no sense of texture, and did not realize until he had handed it over just how sharp, fresh, and not worn or crumbled the note had been. Neither did the toll-collector, it seemed, who too wore gloves, but more so was so used to his daily routine, that, when he saw a hundred, he assumed that it was ducats.

  The words hung on the tip of his tongue: ‘I gave you the wrong–’ but, waiting for an opening to speak, he ended up missing his chance. The toll-collector operated his machine, printed out a one-time ticket, handed it over, thanked him, and left.

  “Excuse me,”

  The toll-collector did not hear his feeble voice.

  The rest of the ride Satou spent staring at the toll-collector’s back. He stared at his navy-blue hat poking out at the front-seats, restless and indecisive, and for the hundred and fiftieth time thought about how he would go up to him and tell him what had happened. But the more he waited, the less temerity he found himself able to summon. Only later, once the tram had neared its first stop, did it occur to him that perhaps this was karma—self-inflicted or not—that he deserved it for stealing the billfold. The thought afforded him some comfort—masochistic or otherwise—but—

  “What the hell am I doing…”

  Leaving King’s Crossing, he had promised to himself that he would change. Then he had gone ahead and broken it, not once, not twice, but countless times already. He remembered the officer, when he had asked him out for a night out—a date—and the fiasco that had followed because of his idiocy. The image afforded him the heat he needed to finally get up.

  Before he knew it, he found himself standing next to the toll-collector. The tram grinded to a halt. No one entered, no one left, no one said anything, and everyone patiently waited in an empty barren street for a young woman to get out and leave. Things could’ve gotten awkward if Satou had stayed quiet for a few seconds longer, but:

  “I gave you my riyals, sir.”

  “Pardon, ma’am?”

  “I might’ve given you my riyals, sir. I gave you a hundred riyals, for the fare. I just found out. I thought I gave you a hundred ducats, but—I must’ve given you a hundred riyals, since, I’m missing one.”

  “Ah! I beg your pardon… Right! Here you are,”

  “Thank you…”

  Just like that, he had gotten his riyals back. Was that so hard?

  Mishaps notwithstanding, the tram ride was a peaceful one. No one talked, because nighttime had made everyone tired and unhumorous to do anything but doze off or try not to. The tram was pleasantly spacious, with plenty of leg room and it did not smell of paint or anything but the fresh air outside, except, oddly enough, like a bomb-shelter. When the fourth, fifth, or sixth—or who knew which stop it was—came, the two women he had entered with got up to leave.

  Satou watched them with some mild interest. With his head propped up against the window, he watched the two women stand by the sidewalk and talk—something about a flooding somewhere—with a weary face, half-lidden eyes, when, just as the tram began to move, he realized, not too late, that if he didn’t get out as well, then he would be the only one left!

  Here, he didn’t think. He ran for it.

  He sprung up from his seat and jumped out of a moving tram just as it began to pick up speed. Thud—

  Out the front-door, he saw the toll-collector lean out. The dark silhouette waved a hat over his head. Farewell, it meant.

  He knows, Satou realized. Embarrassed, he waved back, awkwardly, as the tram, now empty, headed towards its terminus.

  The two women meanwhile had vanished as well before he could ask them for directions; but he no longer cared, once he saw his surroundings. Everywhere he looked, even himself, was bathed in a luminous white-glow. And he was speechless.

  As the night had deepened, the city had at some point stopped growing darker. The culprit behind it all was glaringly obvious, and it was a feat in itself that he hadn’t noticed it until now. That white disc far off yet so near, ten times larger than the sun he had seen in the afternoon, halfway out the horizon behind a continent of clouds—there she was, ancient and solemn: the moon of this world.