A night's work

There is a weird calm in the air at 3 am in the morning. A calm that is not hungover on the night that is past and that has not pinned all its hopes on the dawn that is about to come. At the same time, my office room bears the scars of a work from the week before and the promise of work to come the next week. And just like the time, I am here on Saturday night, in-between life and after-life, talking to my computer.

The rain beats on the four large windows in the room. Relentlessly, as if trying desperately to run away from the darkness that surrounds it outside and seek refuge in the light that shines inside the windows. My fingers fly on the keyboard, typing lines of gibberish that I will not recognize the day after. My mind has taken on a life of its own, thinking effortlessly about writing logical gibberish and making my fingers dance to those thoughts. Everything else is blotted out into the background like the wet black of the night outside.

This trance like state of hunger and exhaustion is refreshing. There is no room for doubt or pity or hope or anything else except the single minded determination to get the gibberish right. The hunger claws on my insides as my eyes catch the glint off the insides of a KitKat wrapper. The light stings my eyes, complaining about being kept awake at this ungodly hour without another soul in sight. Fortunately, none of this bothers the marching of time.

The first tram back is at 5am. The people out at this hour are the all-night-party folks, perhaps returning in the hope of scavenging for breakfast somewhere. A barely teen aged girl sways in a drunken stupor and tries to touch a passing tram. A boy drags her back, possibly saving her life while she mouths a few curses at him. I look at them like an alien from another dimension. Another duo is arguing in the middle of the tram track. The roads, brightly lit, are shining wet. Kids.

The tram, for home, arrives. Inside the tram, life is back on its rails again. The night and the evening fades away into memory , to become the subject of a crappy blog post sometime.

I made breakfast before hitting the sack.