I was standing in the doorway, surprised by the view. An old staircase opening up to the sky, the rooftop of the tower, where people were taking a break from the party, enjoying the view, chatting, looking out at the Waalbrug and the Ooijpolder. Stone balustrades on the right, covered with bright yellow lichens. It was sunset time, around ten. Not that many people up there, in sharp contrast to the streets below, streets of Nijmegen with a hundred thousand people partying, the Vierdaagse crowds out for another night.
Other years I would have walked through those crowds for hours, with friends. This year I had an injury that kept me off my feet, and avoiding the crowds was the only option. I went a few steps closer to the balustrade to look. A detail of architecture, and noticing something the others probably didn’t.
When I took out my phone to photograph it, I noticed the cup. I’d found it in between two stone pillars of the balustrade, and next to it, a lichen, growing on the same grey stone surface. Likely just coincidence, the way it sat there, but it looked almost placed, blending in with the yellow already growing on the surface. Someone from the party had left it, a fleeting moment, set down next to something that grows slowly, sometimes over years.
I felt like coming home to Nijmegen, seeing the Waalbrug again, recognisable over the river. A river that has been there for thousands of years, and the Belvedère beneath me, that has stood for centuries. Leaving the rooftop, I went back down through the old tower, the way I’d come up. The light on the stairs was orange and yellow, falling on the spiral staircase and the small window of the centuries-old tower.
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