Alex confronts that he has changed, but can’t understand what happened. Bennie, who is older and more experienced, understands time and age have changed him. Alex’s poetic thoughts offer an inverse of the novel’s symbols of the sun and pauses. The night is absent of sunlight and the stars are not visible, which reflect Alex’s lack of attention to time, but the hum reflects the idea that time is always passing, whether one pays attention to it or not. Their hope that the girl is Sasha speaks to their desire to reconnect with the past, but the fact that it is a young woman who is new to the city suggests the past is unattainable—that time is always moving forward, and past moments of connection or authenticity must remain forever behind them.