Every day we encounter ghosts, and we do not realise. The ghosts of moments that have passed, and of people who stood here, who walked these streets, and danced all night – dropping their energy, leaving traces of their time, their desire, their experience. We are walking over these traces, our modern footsteps dulling and muddying the memories, but it does not matter: most people cannot feel it. They want new, progress, change, and it is my job to give it to them. I sell things that do not belong to me to people who can afford to possess them but will never understand them, land and buildings and opportunities. Build here, progress there, expand, expend, and alter.

But I was not always like this, with my impressive suit and my shiny car. No, I lived another life before this one: I was a night creature, a wanderer, an explorer.

I spent so long waiting to feel ready for life to happen, only to wake up one day and find it has already happened. The change was gradual, so much so I did not notice until I stumbled across the metal door sign in the city museum. Bar Central – taken down when it closed, I suppose, and suddenly my history had become artefact. I stood still, frozen, my body aching with the desire to go back there, so I jump into my shiny car and I drive, my thoughts filled with the darkness and the nights.

Bar Central has gone. I stand on the pavement, staring at the shredded wires exposed to the sky: a building torn open, its inside secrets revealed. I never saw it in daylight. It was never meant to be seen in daylight and, as I stand here, transported, feeling and remembering the nighttime, all the promises and possibilities, when I had too much energy and nothing to do but spend it . . . that is when I see them. The others, just like me. The Bar Central ghosts still dancing in the sky.