Further into the seemingly endless night, keep pushing, friend, he tells himself, roaming here and there in his mind as he walks the streets - the seemingly endless streets - avoiding the major avenues, preferring to disappear in the shadows. It is now he loses some of the day's confusion (when the sun's glare oppresses and the summer heat squeezes him like a wet sponge), now when he isn't dripping sweat and there are few headlights prying into the night, he feels closest to himself. He focuses on himself rather than the distractions of the street, and he gathers strength here with his thoughts, in the shadows. The pressure of time is relaxed now; he has hours to prowl through his head, as he does the backstreets; the lone wolf at his most energetic, at his most harmonious with himself, and feeling that with times like this - as with a drug fix - he can go on.