From the Archives: Hitchhikers at Night

It's ten past midnight and it seems no shuttle is coming to take us from the library to the dorms. I look up to the peaceful stary sky. It's starting to get chilly but I didn't bring a jacket with me. I left my dorm this sunny morning and hadn't planned to stay out for long. Sometimes it gets pretty chilly here, so far away from the city, so far deep in the forest.

Just then, a dark car with tinted windows drives up and stops right in front of us. With no words exchanged, three students and I get in. None of us know each other, but we all have the same destination. Anywhere else and I would have assumed I'd be spending the night attempting to escape an abandoned factory - but here? Well, here we're all going to the same place and there's no way we're all headed for a factory.

Now let's look at it from the driver's perspective. Imagine you're fed up with studying and decide you want to go home. As you're driving your car and see a couple of people standing in the dark waiting for a bus to come to pick them up. Do you just randomly stop, knowing that some of them, if not all of them, want to go to the dormitories? Of course, why else would you have a car, am I right? Four people, whom you've never met before, see you stop and hurry towards you. You drive them, drop them off, and say goodnight.

It happened multiple times, and every time I get really excited. Sitting in the backseat looking out of the window... It makes me think of the different lives we all lead and how we're all sharing a bit of it together for a brief amount of time. Our paths are all tangents aligning momentarily.

In a world where hitchhiking has become so feared and seen as risky, it is here an unspoken rule that you need to pick people up on your way out of campus at night. Editor jumping in to add something: this was all written before 2020, but did you also get an odd feeling reading it? Strangers sitting together in a small and enclosed area? One day we'll all be back hitchhiking car rides. You just wait for it.

There's a strange beauty in rides like that. It's a special feeling you get in very few other places. This idea that you and some strangers come together to ride in yet another stranger's car. It really makes me appreciate this place and community.

It must have something to do with the night's blanket covering the sky. This calmness it brings with it. And the few numbers of people waiting on the sidewalk. A special few that retain their individuality in standing alone, far away from the masses that are already at home. At night, approaching drivers see a few individuals standing in the rain helplessly, whereas during the day they see one mass of faceless strangers who will eventually be picked up and therefore don't need their assistance.

When I cross someone while walking through the campus at night there's an immediate sense of connection, something we have in common being here alone in the calmness of the night. During the day, however, all I see is that mass that has long lost its face. A complete lack of individuality and sincerity. Everyone seems to be imitating each other and handing out fake laughs. The way they dress, the way they talk, all the way down to the topics they discuss. It all seems the same. It must have something to do with the night's blanket covering the sky.

My days (and nights) here are limited. There will come a time when I'll run out of them and I will have to move on. Someday I'll be walking at night through the streets of some faraway city, waiting for a taxi to pass by and take me along, and on that night, I'll remember this campus for those memories it granted me. Until then, I'll wait here at the bus station for a little longer. Just until the next car comes along.

Campus pathway at night

The campus parking lot at night. Sometimes foggy because of the surrounding sea and forest.

The bus stop where we were picked up by shuttles or by students driving home.

The campus at night. Foggy again.