In a weathered five-story apartment between skyscrapers, a dim light seeped through the faded curtains.

The wailing of sirens and the hum of the city filled the morning air.

The old woman leaned on her cane as she walked toward the door, passing through the narrow space between a bookshelf filled with old records and a wooden bunk bed.

With every step she took, the worn floor let out a soft creak beneath her feet.

When she opened the door, the chill crept into her sleeves. She began walking toward the East River.

The river greeted her in its calm, familiar way. She steadied herself on her cane and made her way along the water.

She paused, watching the people who were just beginning their day — the faces she had come to know.

 

A man in a suit hurried past, giving a brief, polite nod — one of those small gestures she had come to treasure in this city.

A woman passed by, her hijab fluttering slightly as she gently pushed a stroller and gazed at her child with tender eyes.

A young healthcare worker in a hospital uniform tied up her black hair and hurried into the subway station.

A man with curly hair, sweeping the street, met her eyes and smiled before turning back to his work.

She had watched them all for years — strangers who, somehow, had become part of her morning routine.
Each face, each small movement, was a quiet reminder that she still belonged here.

 

Once, she had crossed another ocean  — leaving behind everything she knew, staking all she had on that journey.

Her dreams were still unwrinkled, and she had yet to live through thirty-five tides of time here.

Alongside those who came before her, and those who came after, she helped build this city with their hands and their dreams, raising buildings, tending parks, cleaning the subway.

Some of them returned to the places they had once left behind, but her friends stayed — they married, raised children, and became part of the breath of their home. 

The city carried the traces of their lives gently.

And before they knew it, many years had passed, and they were in their seventies.

 

She had loved this river.

In her first years here, she would come every weekend—sometimes just to cry, sometimes just to breathe.

On the nights when the sorrowful moon of her first year lit the river's surface, on evenings when the familiar solitude drifted with the sound of car horns, and on tender days when she held her lover's hand, breathing the spring wind, the river was always there.

Now, as she stood there again, she wondered how much of her life the river had witnessed: the years of struggle, of work, of love and loss.

Like the clear eyes that once held her dreams at the start of every day, amid the cold glow of neon, the river still held the blue of the city's night.

The glimmer of countless lights, the pale clouds, and the soft shine of distant stars — a quiet mirror of her younger self.

She lifted the camera she valued — the one that had been with her for so many years — and began to frame the view of the water. When she was young, she had wanted to be a photographer. She wanted to capture the honesty of faces and the truth of nature, just as they were — to hold them in memory.
On the walls of her home hung photographs of nature flowing in harmony with the city, of friends who spoke different languages yet understood each other by a glance, and of the lively faces along the river.
She portrayed everything just as it was through her camera — as if the city itself, shaped by their lives and hopes, had come to embrace them all, and as if the river were quietly drawing her and her friends into its gentle arms.

 

 

And as she raised her camera toward the world,

A gentle ray of sunlight, tinged with the evening glow, softly settled on her shoulder.

One by one, the city lights began to shine again.