3AM. It's the dead of night. The town is finally silent, save for the occasional car passing in the distance, a lone traveller, a late party goer, someone coming back from their lover, an half-asleep police patrol.
It's not yet time for crime, you'd have to wait an hour or so for everything to really shut down, but not too long, else the early risers would disturb you. It is too late for regular vice either, bars are closed, clubs are full, dealers are getting their beauty sleep, working girls have stopped working.
It's a liminal time, an in-between for dreamers and insomniacs, to whom, at that particular hour, the town belongs. It's the moment when you know you should be asleep, but that strange peace draws you out.
Maybe you sit on your window's ledge, your feet dangling in the eternal void that a first floor becomes at that time. Maybe you're looking at the stars, those that manage to outshine the dwindling artificial lights of the city. Maybe you're walking, enjoying the feelings of familiarity and otherness that come with the hour. Maybe you're just fighting for sleep, trying to find the dream that will carry you to slumber.
But deep down, you know why you're awake. You're awake because you need that pause, that stillness, that moment for yourself. At that time, you aren't any more one of a multitude, a number lost amongst so many others. No, you are one of the select few who are able to enjoy the night, the real one, the one where you can feel the pulse of the world at it's slowest.
At that time, you are one with it, and with the others who know the secret of the night. You do not need to meet them, you do not even need to see them, you just know they're there, because once you've found that secret hour, it never leaves you. You may forget the night, but she'll remember you, she'll call you, and in that time of stillness, you will answer, time and again.