NIGHTHAWKS – a totally untrue story

‘When do you think we’ll be leaving?’ asked William.

‘Mission control didn’t say,’ said Jane. ‘I already told you.’

William turned to look at the empty New York street, unusually quiet on this 1942 evening. ‘Those pictures of Pearl Harbour sure scared the people here, too. Do they think if they stay inside it can’t happen to them?’  He drummed his fingers on the bar. ‘Can I go for a walk? This waiting is driving me nuts.’

‘No, we might miss our transport. Have another coffee.’

‘’Tastes like piss.’

‘Shh,’ whispered Jane. ‘Mine’s okay.’

‘How’s the sandwich? It looks kinda green.’

‘ Matcha bread. I love matcha.’

‘Ugh. Matcha tea’s bad enough, but bread? Is it okay to bring your own food into a place like this?’

‘Apparently. No-one’s complained. ’

‘Did you get permission for the sandwich? You’re running the risk of time dissonance, Jane. It’s 1942 here, remember. People here havent heard of matcha. That guy over there – soon he’ll be saying, hey lady, what’s that green stuff you’re eating? And he might stroll over for a closer look, and then he’ll notice our clothes are made of some weird kind of cloth and start asking questions.’

‘So what. Stop worrying, William. He can’t possibly guess we’re time travellers. He’s just another late-night drinker, fending off his hangover with one more coffee. Won’t even remember us tomorrow.’

‘Well, he’ll sure remember what’s going to happen next.’ William was beginning to feel a faint fizzing in his bones. It was always like this, a weird sensation that your skeleton was about to ignite. The retrieval vehicle was diving down to them through dimensional time layers, about to perform uplift. He could always sense its approach.

‘It’s nearly here,’ he told Jane, stubbing out his cigarette. Smoking sucked. It was a bitch having to fit in. He could hardly wait to return to the clean air of the 21st century.

‘Can’t get you anything else?’ asked the guy who’d served them.

‘Nope,’ said William. He pulled out his wallet, took out a wad of cash and slapped it on the counter. ‘All yours, pal.’

As they stepped outside, the server snatched up the dollars and flipped them swiftly, wide-eyed. ‘Wow!’ he said to his other customer.

‘That’s some tip you’ve scored,’ said the man. 

They both turned to look at the woman in the red dress and the guy in the shiny suit. William and Jane were standing out on the empty road, tense and expectant, gazing upwards. A light shone down upon their faces, brighter and brighter. It came from the underside of a sleek ovoid capsule that was cruising along above the street. It paused overhead, then suddenly and silently raced away with a backblast of air that made William stagger and smacked Jane’s skirt against her legs.

‘Where’s it gone?’ she shrieked.

‘What was the pickup point?’

‘Here!’ she said, ‘At Phillies. The diner.’ She pointed with a thrusting finger. ‘See, it’s written over the window.’

William groaned. ‘It must be Fillies – the steakhouse in the next block, over by the racetrack!’

‘Will they wait for us there?’

‘Only one way to find out. Afterburners, Jane. Now!’ Together, they bent their knees and jumped. Jets of blue flame scorched out from the soles of their shoes . Arms stretched out, Superman-style, they rocketed off after the capsule.

The two men left in the diner stared at each other. ‘What the hell just happened?’ said the server, still clutching his money. ‘What was that flying thing?

‘Well, I guess if the navy can be blown up in Hawaii with no warning, then anything’s possible,’ said the customer. ‘Hey, you got anything stronger than coffee under your counter? I believe we could both do with a shot.’  – Lindsey Dawson,

Nighthawks – the true story

This is one of the United States’ most famous and mysterious 20th century paintings. It’s of a fictitious diner in a New York street that is strangely empty of life except for four people. Artist Edward Hopper finished it just days after America was shocked by Japan’s bombing of Pearl Harbour. Bright and busy New York went silent and fearful. A city that had felt bold and secure now wondered if it, too, might come under attack. Suddenly, residents were doing blackout drills. Hopper’s diner was, however, brightly lit under the glare of newly invented fluorescent lighting.

Hopper often depicted people looking lost and disconnected, even in the company of others. He was immensely skilled at showing how lonely a person be even in the midst of busy urban noise and clutter.

Born in 1882, he began his art career as an illustrator (a job he detested). His own work didn’t start to sell until he hit his early 40s. That was in 1924, the same year in which he married his wife, Josephine Nivison. She was a good artist in her own right and modelled for many of his paintings. That’s her in the red dress in Nighthawks. It was said to be an unhappy marriage, but lasted 43 years.

Her journal jottings about this painting indicate how it got its name. She described the man at centre as a “Night hawk (beak) in dark suit, steel grey hat, black band, blue shirt (clean) holding cigarette”. The painting, Hopper said in one interview, was “a reflection of my own loneliness’.

Eighty years on, the scene still speaks to us. There were no smartphones in the 1940s but the customers at the counter might as well be staring blankly at hand-held screens, not entirely alone but isolated all the same. Hopper was painting a bleak kind of realism for his own times, but also foreshadowing the world still to come.

Nighthawks, by Edward Hopper, 1942, School of the Art Institute of Chicago