overnight shift

according to my schedule the bus is supposed to run by my bus stop around 9.30 pm. supposed to. it did not come until 9.53 pm. this is when my day starts. i had waited - out of fear to miss the bus - since 9.20 pm in the dark street. i started doing the undoable: walk to the metro station. after a few feet the headlights of the saving metal box became visible in the distance.

i was the only one on the bus. despite what i perceived as already running late the bus driver did not mind stopping at a gas station, abandoning me to dawdle into the well-lit building, staying there for what seemed eternity, and dawdling back with a soda can in his hand. the bus rumbles on with me and a couple of black kids - all three of us with cell phones glued to our ear. it's pitch-black outside: the meager orange street lights don't help much, better are the generous Christmas decorations: doors, shrubs, trees, roofs rimmed with thousands of tiny lights in classic yellowish here or jolly blue, red, and green there. occasionally a doe of lights in the front yard. the bus zigzags through the area. i have no clue where i am but i go to the end of the line so i relax.

in total it took us about 25 minutes to get to the metro station. luckily the metro comes pretty soon and gives me a quick ride to five points, the central metro hub. in return the next metro to the cnn station takes time: westbound in 9 minutes says the display. once on the train it's a short hop to the next stop. now there's just an easy climb of escalators and voila, the big, lofty station spits me out into the darkness again. a few more steps up and down and i made it into cnn after a 1 1/2 hour journey. it's 10.50 pm.

(alright, i took this picture during the day)

i'm late, my shift begins at 10.30 pm. but nobody seems to mind. the next ten hours i shadow one of the newsgatherers. the international desk is worked by about five people during the night. mideast, africa, europe, latin america, and asia are divided among them. it's rather quiet until 1 am, then europe wakes up, in algier bombs explode and the desk is in a frenzy to find out more about the situation in a country where it is hard to find good contacts. i shadow a newsgatherer who desperately tries to get a hold of an algerian official, twittering away in french. i help her by finding numbers, monitoring the wires and german news. time flies. the morning breaks and the lights in the huge newsroom are turned on, artifical sunrise i think. once it's around 6 am the shift is almost over, the morning shift soon comes in, the overnighters leave. a colleague gives me the advice not to go to sleep right away but to treat the morning like an evening, eat something, relax, then go to bed. my shift ends at 8.30 am.

i have an hour's trip on metro and bus. enough time to chill down and continue reading my book ("king rat" by james clawell). being up and running for ten night hours in a row feels like a long plane trip. i shiver a little although the sun is bright, it's about 70 °F, and girls walk by in t-shirts and open toe shoes. i button up my winter coat and do the journey in reverse. back at the house i let jerone know that i made it into the safe zone again. it's 10 am. i go to bed and sleep for five to seven hours. my roommate is at work, the house is quiet, only my notebook is humming but i ban it into the other room.

5 pm. i wake up. time to check mail, make breakfast, chat, blog, and talk to jerone for a bit, catching up on what's going on. then it's almost time to go again. a quick shower, packing up a sandwich, apple, and granola bar for work. time to get going into the darkness again. 9 pm, free evening calls. a quick talk with jerone to say good night. i tell him to go to sleep while i save the world again. and off i go on another round on my little atlanta carousel.