02:00.

It is two in the morning. The time where most of the world is asleep, save for a few students studying or rushing assignments. There is silence in your room, near complete silence You start to notice sounds you don’t normally hear when it is daytime. The cheap Ikea wall clock on your wall  ticks away, each tick coarse and uneven. The air conditioning   slowly blows  air into the room.

You step outside into your balcony, sit down, and light up a cigarette. The sudden flame of the lighter breaks away the  night , then vanishes into smoke and nothingness, consumed by the night, once again. You take a drag, allowing the crisp taste of American tobacco to flow into your lungs, and back out again into the night. The normally busy road in front of your house is empty. Parked cars line the pavement, their owners probably asleep, deep in their dreams. The harsh sodium light of the streetlight cuts through the darkness, illuminating the road in an orange hue. You take another drag, and cough it out because you’ve held it in too long, distracted by your thoughts. A car drives by, its strong headlights glaring out  into nothingness. You wonder who drives around the  estate at this time of the night. You stub out your cigarette and head back into your room.

Back in your room, you sit on the bed and let your thoughts run wild. You wonder what has kept you awake till this timing. You gaze around the room. The clock. To keep time. A dusty Bible. Haven’t touched that in awhile. Your jockey cap from your NS days. No more folding of uniforms. You’d normally be in a state of sadness, thinking about your life, but this night is different. This night is calm, serene. You step back from your emotions and observe the world. Isn’t it beautiful, all the little things that normally go unnoticed?

You turn on your spare laptop, an old Thinkpad with an old-style keyboard. You groan with annoyance as Windows tells you it is “configuring updates”. You open up a writing app. And you begin typing out this article.