A Window at Four in the Morning

I'm not sure exactly when I woke. Opening my eyes, a faint light was smeared across the ceiling. Between the curtains, an unfamiliar city stood still alongside its streetlamps. The hours up to yesterday lie scattered in the time difference. The wristwatch on the table shows this place's time, and my body still remembers somewhere else's. A car passes outside. Its sound is as cool as the air in the room. I sat without pulling up the blanket. The room is quiet. Only a low sound, like water flowing somewhere, travels through the pipes. Whether that sound comes from somewhere in this room or flows inside my watch is hard to tell. I walked to the window and opened the curtain a little more. Streetlight spreads across the wet road. An unfamiliar street, and yet it comes to me as familiarly as if I'd walked it once. I thought of someone who would be asleep at this hour. My fingertips rested a while against the glass. The light blurs and the city is still strange. Until the time comes to go back, this view outside the window will, I think, grow a little more familiar.