The Night Watcher’s Solitude

The Security Guard’s View from his Post

As the night descends into deep blue, wrapping neighborhood houses in sleepy, shadowy silhouettes, the security guard’s post—a tiny, steel-windowed booth—stays adrift in a bubble of warm light. 

Knock, knock. Surprised and uneasy towards visitors at this hour, he tentatively opened a crack of the window and quickly stepped out of the booth. He looked quite young, as I later learned he had only recently begun working in the neighborhood four months ago. I peered inside the booth into the much unadorned surrounding - nothing more than a small table with his cellphone.

“It’s my duty-time,” he explained apologetically, glancing at the security camera near us, “technically, I’m still supposed to stand on guard.” At last, he was convinced to spare a few moments.

For Uncle Li, a security guard from Yunnan, the night is his domain. His watch runs from 8 PM to 8 AM, a cycle that flips every half-month from the 15th to the 30th. After four months of this rhythm, he described the night shift as “more relaxed” than its daytime counterpart, yet quick to clarify that the work is fragmented and tedious. His duties form a quiet litany: patrolling the slumbering community, monitoring the screens, fulfilling what he is proud of: the so-called “fundamental responsibilities” entailed by his job.

In this nocturnal realm, time becomes a fluid concept. “When you’re absorbed, it passes quickly,” he observed. 

But when the tasks are complete and only the vigil remains, the minutes stretch and slow, the silence growing palpable between the ticks of the clock. This ebb and flow is the night shift’s unique tempo, a rhythm known only to its keepers. “The best way to know what working at night feels like is to actually try it,” he explained.

The emotional landscape, he noted, is simpler under the moon. “Fewer incidents, more quiet, fewer problems.” 

The day’s chaos recedes, leaving a blank canvas of peace, albeit one painted with the draining ink of an overturned body clock. “The toll on the human body is significant,” he admitted, a hint of weariness surfacing. “It’s a grind that wears you down over time.”

Yet the night offers its own tender consolations. His most vivid memories are not of people, but of brief, shadowy animal visitors. “The little animals,” he said, a faint smile touching his eyes. “The hedgehogs…sometimes stray cats.” These silent encounters are the night’s secret gifts -  moments of wild, innocent life that break the monotony and belong solely to him.

He was firm in his belief that one must live this life to truly comprehend it. No description can capture the feeling of daytime as a luxury or the deep, physical disorientation of a reversed existence. 

With the hard-won pragmatism of someone who understands the cost, he confirms that his next career will probably be “under the sunlight.”

It is a chosen solitude, a watch kept not just over a sleeping community, but over the quiet, fragile moments that only emerge when the sun is gone.

Under the vast night sky, at the heart of a slumbering city, he answered to the doctrines of his career.