The dead zone of human inactivity

There is probably no contrast between two discrete time intervals as stark as the one separating the pre-Christmas from the post-Christmas period. It’s as if, on Christmas eve, someone flicks a switch and the city goes into hibernation, giving way to a virtual dead zone of human inactivity. That state of stillness is highly unusual, a bit eerie and therefore hard to bear.

As I shuttled between festive venues over the course of yesterday, the impending transition from the pre to the post period became ever more apparent. The first stage is the abrupt end to the several weeks long shopping spree that reaches its fever pitch on the day of and comes to a screeching halt with the last sorry gift store closing its doors. The second stage is all cessation of public life. Privacy takes a firm grip and the normal state of affairs is turned inside-out, or rather: outside-in. I noticed that when I drove along a railway track an overtook the S-Bahn traveling in my direction. The brightly lit wagons were completely empty and looked like a ghost train on a road to nowhere. The third stage doesn’t occur until relatively late in the evening/early in the morning. You’ll know it when you see it: the physical world basically turns into no man’s land. Empty streets, empty bus stops, flickering lights and no signs of human presence whatsoever, except for the occasional lost soul staggering around in the dark. It’s the weirdest sight. Our eyes are not accustomed to such a complete absence of life and bustle. It’s what Will Smith must have felt like in “I am Legend”.

Once you get home, driving past deactivated traffic lights and orphaned crosswalks, the sense of strangeness continues. Wired from joyful Christmas cheer and all sorts of festive stimulants I switched on the TV in hopes of some decent holiday programming (“Die Hard II”, “Coming to America”, “Trading Places”, something like that). But all I got was reruns of stale, badly made documentaries, the sole purpose of which is to make people feel guilty about having turned on the TV set on a special night like this. In the morning: no noise that would prematurely disturb the sleep of the innocent, no jack-hammers, no mail delivery, not even sirens, only faint bells ringing in the distance. But those are operated by automated bell strikers, so no positive sign of human intervention there either.

Basically, the great celebration of charity experienced just a few short hours before morphs into a lifeless, derelict version of reality that’s impossible to reconcile with the former. It corresponds well with the huge build-up of expectations that each Christmas brings anew, deflating each time with a bang when the party’s over. Maybe that exhausts people but it’s not the reason why they hesitate to venture out and the streets are left empty. The fact is: emptiness creeps us out and nobody wants to be seen wandering around when they’re supposed to be with their loved ones. Classic group think that creates a self-reinforcing behavioral pattern. The ritual of community begets a ritual of avoiding solitude that’s very hard to resist. On the bright side, the pattern works: peace and quiet are promises that Christmas consistently delivers.