The Ox-Hour Lots

I should really get some sleep. It's now 1:14am, and I have work tomorrow. Unfortunately, due to last night's intake of alcohol, I somehow contrived to remain in bed until 7:30 yesterday evening. Disgraceful, particularly as I had originally awoke at 1:15pm, made myself a sausage sandwich, and promptly went back to sleep. I remember waking up occasionally, watching it get darker and darker outside, until, finally, my room was pitch black and I had to get up.
Joe was online. He said that he had finally got out of bed at 5:00pm. We met up for a Sunday evening coffee, hoping desperately to get something from the disgracefully wasted day, particularly as, over the early afternoon sausage sandwich it had been sunny and pleasant looking outside.
We decided on the pier, walked down to the dark seafront. Lone dog walkers. A group of people playing basketball in the court by the old, broken down pier. Sunday evening quiet. Hushed.
The pier wss quiet also, and after buying cups of tea from a booth selling fried doughnuts (the strange hypnotic working of the machines, doughnuts on a conveyor belt, plunged helplessly in hot fat) we found out usual spot on the benches on the pier facing westwards.
I have always had a soft spot for the pier. I usually come down with Joe, sometimes Andy, but more often Joe. Despite the sometimes busyness, I find something quiet relaxing and serene about the pier; the noise of the starlings (often at dusk, there is their amazing roosting displays to watch), the invisible sea lapping against the rust and seaweed covered struts. The sound of the arcades seems to lull, even the 1980s songs of the pier radio have an oddly calming effect.
After we had finished we wondered down to the end of the pier. All the rollercoasters and rides had closed. The Horror Hotel shut up for the night. No more vacancies. A pleasing eeriness. The still stares of the horses on the merry-go-round. The ceaseless twisting sea.
We walked back along the seafront, discussing the calming effects of going for a walk, lamenting how much we had both drunk last night (8% ales at the Evening Star beer festival, vodka at Andy's afterwards). After Joe had headed home, I called around Andy's house for a cup of tea. Andy had only got out of bed at 6pm, and was feeling similarily guilty too. Ben and Rachel had stayed the night, while he slept on the sofa.
I only meant to have one cup of tea, and then head homne, but the television conspired to provide rivetting entertainment; an old episode of Cracker and The IT Crowd, a film called The Beach, and a documentary on America's Toughest prisons. It was about an hour ago when I left Andy's house. Opening the door onto Cromwell Road, I was pleased to discover that a sea-fog had come down, the strongest I havce seen for years, everything hidden and softened by luminous grey, even the headlights of passing taxis possessing a night-time glamour.
My footsteps were still on the streets, the odd lone walker passed me by, looming up out of the white with startling speed. I paused momentarily at the entrance to St Ann's Well Park, a place which is occurring more and more often in my imagination. This is probably due to me always passing by at night, wondering about the secrecies held inside, the lamp lined paths, the empty tennis courts and boarded up cafe. It seems almost like it's own country, a strange interior region in the borderland between Brighton and Hove.
All quiet now in this house of bedsits. The whirring of the laptop, and the sound of footsteps somewhere else in the house. I have always had a fondness for the small hours, away from the petty noises of the day. Our waking hours are crammed so full of trivial distractions, that sometimes it is hard to find the peace that you can find as the clock edges slowly from 1:00am to 2:00am. In Japanese mythology, the small hours are known as the Hour of the Ox. This is the time of day that ghosts and spirits are most likely to appear. This is interesting, as people who work in hospitals say that this is the time people are most likely to die, and I have heard it said that the emergency services know this period as a busy one, where things tend to happen.
Anecdotal evidence from various message boards correspond with this. Ghost stories and weird yarns congregate around this hour, an ambiguous congregation around an enigmatic altar. The Night Church. The Small Hours Service.
Hymns sung to the dark space of gods.
1:36am now.
Another coffee, another cigarette, and then a drift into sleep and the dreams of the Ox Hours.