It's Four In The Morning...

It's four in the morning, the end of December
I'm writing you now just to see if you're better
New York is cold, but I like where I'm living
There's music on Clinton Street all through the evening.

Thus the song Famous Blue Raincoat begins.

Sometimes I wonder: what does it feel like to write a hopeless letter at four in the morning? Must be pretty desperate.

Tonight, at four o'clock, as I sit in front of the computer, up and half-awake, I feel pretty desperate, too.

Not because I have a heart-breaking tale to tell, no, but because the piercing sound of the fire alarm is ringing, on and on, seemingly to eternity.

Yes. Fire alarm, at four in the morning. That is one of the bonuses of living in this apartment: the fire alarm will go off at any hour of the day. Not once is there a real fire. So we have learned to stay in our rooms and wait helplessly.

Ten minutes later, without a warning, it stops abruptly, just as how it begins. My brain feels empty without it. Immediately, the roaring noises of the passing vehicles on the highway a few miles away rush in to fill this sudden void. I hear them every night. So familiar, so soothing.

I think I am ready to fall asleep again.