it's 12:29 am and i should've finished an essay instead of writing cheap slop

Once again, my internal clock proved infallible. It was four in the morning, the hour right before the sun rose, when the darkness of night, the shadows of streetlamps, dared to whisper secrets to those willing to listen. I jolted awake, drenched in a sweat that chilled me to the bone, ending whatever sick dream I had. Whatever it was, it’d left its mark: my skull drummed relentlessly, a maddening cadence that felt all too familiar.

I reached out in the dim light, my hand moving on pure habit toward the sanctuary of my nightstand. There, resting among the detritus of countless nights, and horrid mornings, lay my saviour; my friend; the one thing I could truly trust in this world. 

A battered bottle of pills.

Acting on instinct, the contents tumbled into my waiting mouth with raw precision. The harsh bitterness of the pills was a cruel reminder of unkept promises, made for myself and others; promises that dissolved just as quickly as they were uttered. A shot of cheap scotch followed, it was a nasty little thing, its burning warmth a fleeting balm that dared me to feel something real in the face of perpetual disillusionment.

Truly a breakfast of champions.

In that bleak, solitary hour, I lingered at the edge of wakefulness and oblivion. In that state of suspended decay, caught between the receding echoes of night and the slow, inevitable creep of day. The pills and the scotch had begun their unhurried work—dulling the sharp edges of thought.

My eyes, heavy with both regret and reluctant amusement, drifted to the window. Outside, the city was an endless mosaic of light and shadow, each glimmer and gloom hinting at stories too sordid to admit but too familiar to ignore.

The night was still young, and somewhere deep within its labyrinthine corners, a new misadventure was already in the making—a promise of further disillusionment wrapped in the veneer of unexpected irony. I paused at the threshold, my silhouette merging with the dim glow of a broken desk lamp, and for a fleeting second, I allowed myself to wonder: was it madness or genius that propelled me into the arms of another night?

It was absurd, the sickest thing my rotten brain could think of, and without waiting for an answer I stepped out into the void, rising from the battered comfort of my bed, each step measured and heavy with a certain resigned curiosity. The fleeting darkness were my oyster and I was it's pearl.