Three AM

We call midnight “the witching hour.” Still, there’s something about 3:00 AM that fascinates us. We write songs about it, “It’s three o’clock in the morning, we’ve danced the whole night through.”
“Well, it’s quarter to three, there’s no one in the place but just you and me …” and you know Old Blue Eyes didn’t mean 2:45 in the afternoon. I was listening to the Moonlight Sonata one sleepless night and I’ll just bet it was 3:00 AM when Ludwig and his piano were keeping the neighbors awake trying out themes.

One of my grandsons asked me, “Grandmama, how come if you go to bed at three AM, they say you’re up late – but if you get up at three AM they say you’re up early.

The other night I couldn’t decide if I was up late or up early, but I was definitely up. I was awake. I was more than awake. I was as alert as a beagle at a bone exhibit. Gary Cooper was not that wide awake at High Noon. Every sense was finely tuned to pick up the whoosh of traffic on the freeway a half-mile away, which made a nice backdrop for the rattling of the bare pecan tree branches as a brisk north wind tossed them around. It sounded like a floating crap game had set up shop outside my window.  All it lacked was someone to shout, “Seven come eleven, baby needs new shoes.”

Shadows performed a Kabuki dance on the ceiling and the digital clock threw malevolent red glances at me. Charlie slept peacefully next to me in that annoying way husbands have. No doubt the cat and dog were similarly engaged in blissful slumber.

My mind raced on – should I already have started on the next issue of the newsletter I edit, even though I haven’t finished the church newsletter that needs to go out next week? Do I owe my brother a letter or does he owe me one? Neither, of course, we communicate by e-mail. Will my kilanchoes survive the winter to bloom in the spring? I squeeze my eyes shut and try to block out the sounds of my neighborhood – the percussion of the occasional rolling boom box that idles up the stop sign on our side street, the neighbor’s un-spayed cat howling – the equivalent of a feline online dating serice -- the intermittent small arms gunfire, the sirens – okay – I’m beginning to drift off.

Then I hear it: heavy breathing. Charlie is about to drift into deeper sleep. I start to itch. First my nose. When I scratch it, I notice it’s cold -- as cold as the aforementioned beagle’s. Next it’s my knee, my shoulder, my back – just where I can’t reach. And then I hear it – this is how it starts: a purr, a burble, a snore. Oh, no, I'll never get to sleep with Charlie snoring. I'll be awake till morning, till three o'clock in the afternoon, till . . .