It’s 12:30 and the world is silent. I look out my window and drift away into a world of thoughts and possibilities. The chimneys between each house are silhouetted against the night sky, rising up majestically like obelisks of a forgotten nation. This is my time. While the world around me sleeps, I dream. I see things differently at night. Daylight makes things seem common or mundane, but in darkness, even the most familiar items are shrouded in mystery.
Senses become sharper. In the eerie silence I can jus barely make out the sound of Jimmy Kimmel Live on someone’s TV. The air smells distinct; of cut grass and tar from the park and the newly paved roads. Looking up, I see the lights of an airplane thousands of feet above me, and I wonder. Who are they? Where are they going? I think about it for a little while, and dismiss whatever notions I have. I hear the pop and crackle of fireworks in the distance. After all, it’s the 4th of July. Each pyrotechnic marvel has a different sound. The hissing pops of roman candles, the high-pitched whine of the bottle rocket, and the echoing boom of M80s momentarily distract me from my writing. I refuse to digress any further.
Nighttime is beautiful for another, more profound reason than any of the others. It’s a time of penance. While people lay comatose in their beds, on their futons or on the streets, a new day begins. Another chance for us to leave our routines and do something worth doing; a chance to something for someone else for a change.
It’s 1:00 by now, and I find myself surprised at how quickly the time has passed. The echoes of celebration have begun to die away, and the TV has been turned off. The air smells different again. Not of grass and tar but of water and sand. A cooling sea breeze flows through y open window giving me the energy to finish up quickly, before I pass out on the keyboard.
Time is a funny thing at night. It either flies by at an unrelenting pace, or crawls along, leaving you to wonder what you’ll do to distract yourself from the absolute, infinite nothingness.
