Null Point

At 4:32 a.m., the summer air lingers, warm but heavy, as Sebastian maneuvers his Maraschino 944 along the empty Embankment. The night had been a blur of neon and thumping bass, the clubs a cacophony of clinking Cristal and shouted conversations over house remixes. “Got a love for you…” he hums.

Inside his car, the air offers a welcome respite—cooler, but still heavy with the scent of Dunhills and Drakkar Noir. The evening unfolded as a celebration of his most recent triumph, another towering structure of glass and steel as cold and empty as his heart. The guests were the usual assembly of aged financiers in bespoke suits and art dealers in vintage Chanel, speaking a dialect of exclusivity, referencing obscure New Order B-sides and the underappreciated works of Richard Hamilton.

Sebastian had dressed the part, though the washed linen of his suit—black with intersecting beige lines—hung heavy and unstructured, the grid lines distorting with every move. But as he listened to the heated exchanges about the BCCI scandal earlier in the evening, he had felt an acute dislocation. It was as though he had constructed not only the buildings but also the people around him—composites of trends and transactions, devoid of the messy warmth of genuine human connection.

Now, he drives, the stillness outside contrasts sharply with the ringing in his ears—residual echoes of the night's revelry. His mind drifts to the solitary expanse above the city. The skyline is different at this hour, more honest somehow; it doesn’t buzz with pretense but stands stark against the star-faded sky, silhouetted by early hints of dawn.

At each red light, Sebastian pauses longer than necessary, the quiet settling in around him. The streets ahead twist and refuse to align. London resists order: lines intersect without meaning, slipping apart at odd angles. What once seemed like direction is now scattered into fragments—an architecture of dead ends.

He stamps his foot down on the accelerator, a silent acknowledgment that speed might blur the sharp edges of his discontent. But as the sky begins to brighten, he knows the dawn will only illuminate an abyss no accolade can fill.