3AM

The Diagnosis

You come alive at the exact hour everything else stops. Something about the light goes strange at 2:47am and suddenly you are a person — alert, lucid, possibly hungry, definitely more interesting than you have been all day. The rest of the world is asleep. Good. You didn't want witnesses for this. You didn't even want it for yourself, but here you are, in the kitchen, holding a fork, in boxer shorts, and whatever you were going to ask the universe — you have its full attention now.

Daylight is a formality. It's where you do the meetings, send the replies, say the right things. Sleep is a formality too, but less successful. Your nervous system operates on a different clock than the grid — yours fires up when most people's shuts down, and shuts down when you're supposed to be useful. You are not nocturnal by choice. You have tried. You are nocturnal the way a plant is photosynthetic. It is the thing that happens.

The food isn't about food. You're not hungry. You walked here because your body wanted to be somewhere, and the kitchen had a light on, and the fridge makes a sound. Standing in cold fluorescent light holding leftover noodles with your bare hands — this is a spiritual act for you. A private ritual with no audience and no purpose. At 3am, you are the most yourself. Which is, unfortunately, mostly a cryptid. Mostly fine. Mostly there.