The white bats swooped around us. They headed in packs into the darkness, then came circling back one by one, screeching all the way. Their voices were a constant sound there on the pier. They yelled as if to warn us of something exciting… or urgent, we were not sure. “Shouldn’t they be sleeping?”
This was an otherworldly place at night. We wondered if time had stopped so we watched the Belgian clocktower closely, suspiciously. The floodlights on the dock gave everything a cinematic quality - catching some angles and facades in the bright glare, and letting others be invisible and forgotten. It made the water greasy and alive, and we could see the seals sliding through the waves sometimes.
The fog horn sounded into the clear night, and two red lights flashed in different languages. There were boats coming in. Two dark men walked towards us. We drew in our breaths… and let them out as they walked past us, smiling.
We felt both vulnerable and safe there, between the sea and the city, amid the patchwork buildings and the night-fishing boats.
