People don’t go out at night here. Not like back in the states. Unlike New York, or L.A. or D.C., Florence is a city that sleeps. Around 12 AM, the city’s maze-like web of ancient streets empty out completely, and its denizens settle into a collective slumber beneath the Tuscan stars.
Or at least…it seems that way.
You see, I’ve found myself out late at night on a few occasions lost coming back from friends’ homes from across the city, and what I’ve said is true. The streets are virtually empty. No gypsies, no busses, no tour guides, and no policemen. The occasional cat may streak through the muted orange light of a streetlamp every so often, but people are a rare find.
And yet, there’s something out at night. Something sending the city charming, thoughtful, and sometimes eerie messages.
What do you think this symbol means? “Don’t stop?” “Don’t enter?” “No standing?” There are four of them lining the street leading up to my apartment on Via Di Barbano. I pass them each and every single day, and despite my ignorance I’d never really stopped to ponder their meaning.
Until a few nights ago.
Now remember, there are four of these signs leading up to my apartment that I pass each and every day on my way to and from school. They’re a constant in my daily commute, and despite my not knowing what they mean I know what they look like. So it’s about 1 AM and I’m coming home late again from the other side of the river. The streets are empty, and the night is warm. I don’t feel scared or anything, but I’ve taken my earbuds out to stay alert. A guy’s got to keep safe.
I’m crossing via Nazionale, heading towards via di Barbano and dreaming on my feet of my bed that’s not 500 feet away when I hear something rumbling over by the solid line of huge dumpsters that line the street. I startle—because again…there’s nothing out there with me. Or so I think. I’m standing there frozen on the spot staring at the dumpsters wondering which of them made the deep rumbling noise.
“It was big,” I think. “It was inside the dumpster. What gets inside a dumpster that can make that much—why am I standing here?”
On my fifth brisk step away from the dumpsters, the one furthest from me rumbles again but much louder and I what can only be described as awkwardly jog-skip-stumble the directly to my apartment, passing by the four signs in a hurried, terrified, decidedly unmanly panic. In my mild terror though, I notice something. The second to last sign, between the extruding pipes…it’s different. I don’t stop to look, obviously—there’s a Something in the dumpster that clearly wants to kill me—but I noticed it.
I made it home alright that night, went to bed, and pushed my fears of the Something aside. The next morning I went about my business and flew hurriedly out the door—I was late. Stomping down Barbano though, the sign caught my eye again. The previously non-descript sign I’d seen the night before and days before that had been transformed. No longer was it a vague suggestion to not do some mysterious thing, no. It had become a suggestion to take one’s seatbelt off.
“Odd,” I thought. “That hardly seems like a normal sign to put up.”
I snapped a photo, and kept walking.
As I walked, I began to pay more attention to the signs. Block after block, I hoped to see another modified sign, maybe the others might have clues as to what the first meant. Nothing. 15 minutes late to class and no more interesting signs.
The next day, on my way to the grocery store I saw another, and the day after that another. Signs that I was passing in the day underwent radical transformations in the night, their messages ranging from “Warning, Crucifiction” to “Devil Crossing.”
I still don’t know what most of the street signs here mean officially, but I do know that late at night, while everyone sleeps, something comes out. Something comes out and in its own way tries to make sense of the signs.