The moon and the stars and the countless constellations of artificial light 
cast a pale glow upon the gray flank of the Green Building. We walk across the 
grass, bare feet grasping moist soil and the rough glistening leaves laden with 
calibrated amounts of dew. A line of Miera trees sway in the low breeze, 
engineered leaves turned upward to grasp at moonbeams.

One hundred and sixty-two dark windows stare into the night above our heads, 
one hundred and sixty-two vacant eyes glistening with tears of starlight. One 
hundred and sixty-two identical panes line the opposite side, the other face of 
Janus bound.

I close my eyes, squeeze your hand, let you lead me forward. There is a cool 
peace in the air, and a caress of melancholy. Our fingers are old and rough, 
but still gentle, still nimble. I almost imagine that I can taste the history 
here, inhale the knowledge and insight and understanding amassed and imparted 
in these halls. I open my eyes. Stars and stone, the scent of twilight. 
Concrete leviathans slumber in night's embrace. The universe cares nothing for 
history, which is a uniquely human conceit. We two are the only ones here.

The stars stare down at us, blind and unblinking. The wind whispers nameless 
secrets to the trees of old MIT.

Pulling open a door we slip inside; it squeaks and thuds closed behind us. The 
corridor before us is a black tunnel lying quiet and neutral, a dim glow of 
starlight suffusing its far end. It bears no malice or resentment or anger, 
contains no joy or love or excitement. It has housed all of these, watched 
emotion ebb and flow with the tides of humanity. But walls are mute and jealous 
of their secrets.

We make our way through the shadows, dancing the final duet of a long and 
wonderful life together, a thread weaving somewhere through the tangled 
tapestry of human history. Photons dying a million light-years from home guide 
our feet; the careful labor of centuries stands silent about us. At the 
midpoint of the corridor, unearthly shades of silver filter through the tall 
windows to our left. The ground trembles and we steady ourselves against each 
other. We understand: Detachment is complete, and Impulse about to begin. Dust 
falls from high ledges, drifting white in the moonglow past memorials to the 
cost of ancient wars. We are joined by the names of soldiers long dead, in the 
final hours of the institution from which they had graduated.

Our footfalls are soft on the starlit stone outside the end of the corridor. 
Pillars tower above us, seemingly infinitely strong, but in reality so fragile, 
so transient. I sit down with a sigh at the top of the steps. You settle beside 
me. We lean against one another and gaze toward MIT west, which has never been 
the same as true west, not even in the days when it was constant.

Beyond the sidewalk, beyond the fields and trees and buildings, beyond the 
organic sheath anchored by nano-composite cables, we watch the rest of New 
Boston drifting away, a soap bubble of humanity floating between the moon and 
the stars and the blue-white curve of the Earth so very far below.

The stone is hard and rough beneath me. I shiver in the breeze, and grasp your 
warm hand in mine. "It really is lovely at night," one of us whispers. It 
doesn't matter who.