In Tel Aviv, there was a building that kept count.
Each night after sunset, its façade lit up with enormous pale numbers — a quiet ledger of the days since the hostages were taken. Beside them glowed a small yellow ribbon, made of light pointillism and unwavering. Sometimes, when talk of a ceasefire drifted through the city, words appeared beneath the count: We’re waiting for you. Most nights, it was only the numbers. Steady. Relentless.
This week, I walked by and saw the building gone dark. No numbers. No ribbon. Just glass and concrete receding into the skyline punctuated only by the reflection of construction cranes.
I tried to imagine how the lights had worked. Whether it was a grid of bulbs controlled by a system somewhere — or had it once depended on people? Was it simply office lamps left on in the pattern of the numbers? A quiet choreography of switches and absences. Someone deciding, each night, which desks would stay lit.
Now, all of it has gone dark.
Maybe it was always automated. Maybe not.
But I like to think the darkness means everyone finally got to go home.