The Last Night Markets of Summer Refuse to Close Early

SEVILLE — The heat is loosening its grip a degree at a time, which by the logic of a warm-belt summer means the night markets ought to be winding down — and they are having none of it. In the Alameda this week the stalls opened at eleven and did not thin until the first gray light, the same inverted clock the city has kept all season, now defended out of pure affection. "We did not invert the day because we love the dark," said melon-seller Rocío Delgado, weighing fruit for a couple who had come out at one in the morning with a sleeping child in a sling. "We inverted it to live. Now we like living at night." From Seville to Karachi the pattern holds: weddings at two, concerts at three, whole economies of the cool hours that no one is quite ready to surrender to autumn. The heat will win eventually; it always does. But summer's last markets are closing on their own terms, hour by hour, and not a minute before they choose to.