Once Around the Complex
I gave up on sleep and pushed my feet into my shoes. My hands were still clumsy with the laces. While I walked once around the complex, the streetlights dragged my shadow long behind me, and the sky was thinning, little by little.
There was a day when the sound of a lone delivery scooter passing through the alley at dawn was unusually loud. After the sound faded, it was quiet, without so much as a dog barking.
The quiet after that sound faded may have been the reason I stopped walking and looked up at the sky.