At 5:30 am

At 5:30 in the morning, even the biggest city seems like a ghost town.

It’s dark enough that, through the blurred vision of early morning sleepiness, you could mistake it for evening. Traffic lights blink red and yellow. Buildings continue to sleep, their internal lights barely making enough light to illuminate the offerings inside. Every intersection is a graveyard, your vehicle the only remaining entity left as you patiently look both ways and proceed.

It’s not completely abandoned, though. Other people like me – still half-asleep, trudging into work to make up time or clock in for an early day – slowly cruise the streets, their headlights creeping along the pavement.

They, like me, are experiencing the new day before most others. By the time Kerrie wakes up, today being her day off, the morning will have been touched by thousands, a seemingly fresh awakening already feeling the effect of civilization’s restlessness.

Because last night was warm, I roll down the windows. I turn up my radio. I turn onto Minnesota Avenue and continue on my way, wondering what the day will bring, enjoying a band I had long forgotten, excited to be alive and, for the moment, alone in a ghost town.