Night Ride, Quebec City: A Slow-Burn Noir Short Story

It is two-nineteen in the morning, the apartment is too quiet, and sleep is not coming. Tonight Marc turns forty-five, alone, in a place that stays silent however late he comes home. He gives up on the bed, unchains his bike, and rides down into the Old Port of Quebec City to run the dread out of his legs. The riverfront path is empty and beautiful, the fog comes off the St. Lawrence, and for a few minutes the ride does exactly what he wanted it to. Then the lamps thin out. - A place built for crowds, holding none. A dark pool, stacked loungers, showers dripping in the fog - the wrong kind of empty.- The stretch with no light. A sound that could be the river, a shape that could be a man, and the certainty that he is not the only thing awake.- Place-Royale, where the city began in 1608. Four hundred years of stone, a tired mind drifting to everything except the road, and one wheel that never looks down. Under 7,500 words - one sitting - and built to reward a second read, when you finally see the thing that was in plain sight the whole time. He rode out into the dark to stop thinking about how a life ends. Turn off the light and take the ride.