5:54am: A Dark and Listening Geography

5:54am.
Dead silence.
There is a spectral cold in this hour that is hard to describe, something clear any icy and all encompassing. An Arctic wave, a bathe in a December lake. A sense of stillness too, an utter secret stillness. I might be the only one awake in the world now, except I am extraordinarily tired. I check my tickets; in an envelope in my wallet. I sip my half full cup of tea.
Only minutes till I join that most secret of landscapes, most private of times, that haunted hour (or haunted hours) before dawn. I can almost hear the silence of the streets between here and Brighton Station, a dark and listening geography unleavened by the cries of seagulls or people passing by.
Except ghosts of course.
I imagine there will be plenty of ghosts.
5:59am