Someone knocked. It’s 4:30 AM. The entire local Earth is muffled by a foot of snow so even cars (should they pass by) hush by. Every creature sleeps or is silent, winged predation, or a predator’s intent. One of my cats is a small sandbag across my ankle, the nocturnal knocked out of him. The furnace hums, that’s all: almost inaudible, slightly super-liminal drone. Nothing moves, and nearly-nothing makes nearly-no-sound.

It’s as though I had woken after a gunshot, when the echoed report had already faded: subconsciously aware in my sleeping self, the dream already dissipated as I roused, not even the slightest filament remained, no texture of a touch, so feature of the call, no body at my side (save the sand-bag), no disturbance of the mind, just… wakefulness.

If not outside, then inside? I move my toes, flex the muscles of the calves, check the knees the thighs the hips the sex the belly (hm, a little hungry there, and there) the yawn-inflated chest the slightly acrid breath the neck (could use a hand to gently soften: that will wait) the sandy blinking eyes the forehead uncreased tonight. Nothing. No complaint so great it could not wait for morning.

So why did You wake me, an hour before dawn, with nothing better to be done than squint around the room at shadows of shadows, the sun’s left-overs, the memories of lovers? Not even yesterday’s turmoils to spin the brain? What do you want??

But.

No One answers. I write a few words to fill the void.

My left foot is hot; the black fur sandbag shifts his weight. Maybe it was the cat woke me in his sleep, after all, but didn’t want to play.

I shift his body, heavy in his relax, reach for arms that are not here tonight, content myself with a muddy mirror and a mental sigh.