it's four in the morning, the end of december

The usually busy street lies silent but for the clicking of the pedestrian lights nattering away like two tap dancers slightly out of synch. My socks do little to stop the cold from caressing my feet as I fill my lungs with the noxious fumes of traffic and nicotine.

In these quiet hours in a busy city, I wonder if the moon gets jealous of the neon signs whose light bounces off stainless steel and sidles up the limbs of trees like a lecherous drunk to a young blonde.

She shouldn't, but all women are insecure.

By the time the smoke starts to curl about my fingers I have recalled the 'old book' scent of my grandmother's writing table which housed yellowed pieces of paper and a copy of Reader's Digest with Falcor on the cover; the secret treasure my sister and I would brave the wrath of our nan to hold.

The corpse of my cigarette takes its place in the mass grave I have built for its kind and I wonder... why are night thoughts so different from day ones? When I wake tomorrow and read this, I'm going to say 'what the fuck?', but right now, even in sobriety, it all makes perfect sense.

Nightbrain - you get me in so much trouble.