a.m.

I awake before dawn most days, a little after six. I imagine the light from my bedroom window must appear as a beacon to the darkened dwellings below--a strange figure, silhouetted, moves this way and that, darting from one end to the other, as I scramble to dress into clothes the same temperature as the frigid air in my room.

Pushing open the door to the rooftop I find things much I as left them hours ago. The stars are out, the moon gleams overhead. The air is still and sharp. The sun has yet to show signs of stirring from its nest behind the mountains.

By the time I've bundled up and made my way out the door onto the street, everything is colored a dark purple, and orange streetlamps still glow.

My footsteps in the gravel and mud echo down the rows of buildings. Not a soul is out; only the dogs are waking and gathering for breakfast around newly piled trash. A muffled voice glides on ghost radio waves chanting verses from the Qu'ran like a lost signal traveling forever out into space.

This is perhaps my favorite part of the day. The pre-dawn feels content with itself: it has no place to be but here, no regard for the previous day or the one yet to come. The past has been cleared by the sweeping arm of the night and the rush forward has yet to begin. When morning does come this sliver of stillness gently bows out with humility. But those twenty or thirty minutes in the twilight zone are, paradoxically, simultaneously, fantastically electric and deeply serene.

At the taxi stand, faceless men in hooded djellabas slouch over a single butane gas tank cooking their first tea of the morning as though they are performing some seance.

Light leaks into the day-- first pink, then golden. The snow on the mountains is perfect and I can't help but want to be there as I run towards the east, throwing rocks at too-curious wild dogs and choking on the exhaust of the first growling motorbike to pass me by.