4:35 AM

A feeling that something was fundamentally wrong with this life had kept me awake. I had attempted to fall asleep, but ended up just lying in bed with my eyes closed and that restlessness in my heart. And so, unlike many of the past nights, I turned on a lamp at 4:30 in the morning, took a long shower, and decided to go out.

I drove down to Westwood and went to the only place that was open this late or this early, a mediocre chain deli that, in the emptiness of the streets, was lit like home.

Walking the block from my car to the deli, I could see my breath. The sky was still a deep black and the streets were still awash in the orange glow of streetlights, and the world was silent just for a while. This would be a good photograph, I thought to myself, a solitary figure in leather jacket, jeans, hunched in the cold, hands in pockets framed by the night and streetlights.

A tired, young waitress showed me to my table and asked if I wanted coffee. I smiled at her, both of us recognizing how tired we were, and held the look for a while. I said yes in that smokey morning voice, and within seconds, got my coffee.

There were about seven other customers in the deli. The four sitting behind me were young men who looked like they had been out clubbing, but were earnestly discussing the change of film and technology. A couple of booths further back, a lone man in his late forties with a shag of a hairstyle and a sweatshirt too young for him sat with an unassuming grin. I realized that it was the actor who played Cameron in Ferris Bueller's day off.

The man sitting in the booth next to me was in his late fifties, with a lean, haggard face full of grey stubble, wearing cheap glasses. He had a notepad that I caught a glimpse of, full of strange, hand drawn diagrams. The other customer also gave off that feeling of quiet madness, grey hair in a moptop, dingy t-shirt over sweats.

I ordered a meal that was too filling, and took me time between bites and reading a magazine that was two weeks outdated. And so I took it all in, the earnestness, the madmen, the insomniacs.

And I thought about you, though I don't know who you are. I may not have met you yet, and there you are, slumbering by yourself, or with someone else, our paths not having crossed yet. Or maybe I have met you already, neither of us realizing the full significance of the things we have said and the looks that we've shared. I thought about waking up next to you, both of us unable to sleep, our hearts restless not because there was fundamentally wrong with this life but because everything was right with it. And so we would go down to mediocre chain deli that, in the emptiness of the streets, was lit like home. We would walk down the early morning street, arm in arm, hunched over, leaning on each other, looking like the companion piece to "The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan" album cover. We would sit across from each other, smile, talk in our smokey morning voices.

By the time I finished my meal, the facade of the stores across the street had turned from the orange of streetlamps to the faded blue-white of the morning. I walked out, and saw my breath. This would be a good photograph, I thought to myself, the back of a solitary figure in leather jacket, jeans, hunched in the cold, hands in pockets framed by the grey morning light.

And I drove home, and now the day has fully broken. My heart is still restless, but I am calm for now. And I will sleep for a little bit, and wonder when our paths will cross.

"Driving so slow
Streets are empty as we go
Back over the canal
We've all had a long day and we're going home

We all got big tears in our sides
And the city salt doesn't help
But it sure cleans them out

In little coffee shops
And litte sidewalk cops
We're the only ones awake
We're the only ones that can't stop

Driving,so slow
Streets are empty as we go " -- Gemma Hayes, "4:35 AM"