Inside the Midnight Hour

She is sleeping in her bed unconscious of the hustle and bustle of the world outside. The city is moving like a snake towards its prey, but this movement is neverending. It is midnight and she is sleeping while her eyes move rapidly under the eyelids. The snake of the traffic slithers and smoothly goes across the rainy streets. It is a warm summer night. It seems that the colors and neon lights should have slowly waned by now but they have not. The strange humming is heard. People are running away from the cities in throngs.

The prices of all sorts of headphones and earplugs have rocketed this month. They have been sold everywhere, on every corner of every street. They seem to be more essential than petrol or the air. All over the media, there is a sea of news showing people fighting over the last earplugs or any type of earphones they could get. Even animals are scared and disoriented.

Her body is tightly pressed on the bed as if it is in a painful cramp of some sort. Breathing is almost invisible, if it were not for her pulsing neck artery one would think she is dead. The shadows in her room seem to be caving in on her. Not moving but menacingly closing in, while the dark thickens as if trying to embalm her wholly. There is no sound in the room and there is no one in the apartment but her. Deafening silence. 

Her body wants to wake up because of the bad dream she is having. It seems like hours have passed and in reality, it's just two minutes after midnight. A strange hour indeed when evil starts to crawl out of the shadows of the night. Evil loves the night and loves to creep upon humans, to make their nights restless. The evil one never sleeps.

She breaks out in a cold sweat and opens up her eyes. She doesn't turn on the lights and starts to dress hastily. The street is calling to her and she is out leaving her darkness behind. She doesn't know where she is going but she is going away. This urge for escape has finally reached its peak.

She did not get any rest for days. She is exhausted. A terrible pounding in her head. Words words words. People talk and talk and never say anything. As if they just want to hear the sound of their own voices. Miscommunication everywhere. It's the evil forces at work. They create the noise that has been heard all over the city. Strange noise that started little over the month as an indistinct hum and now it is so loud that people can't think properly, talk, nor get any rest. 

***

“I can't hear you very well. Can you repeat that please?” the trumpet player asks. “It's almost midnight and I just went out to buy some milk. Come again? This noise seems to be getting worse.” The gig has just about to start. 

“Do you want another whisky before you get on stage? My shift ends now so if you could pay me…”, the bartender asks him.

“No problem here you go. Pour another one”, he hands the bartender some money, “keep the change”

“Mighty kind of you, my man”, says the bartender in the coolest of voices wearing no earplugs.

“How come you wear no earplugs? Plus this gig is pointless, no one can hear clearly my playing anyway”

“It doesn't bother me I guess. Probably because it distracts me from my thoughts. Not bad at all when you come to think of it, really. I don't have to think about anything now. I feel free finally. Except I get tired of the noise for sure.”

The trumpet player goes up on the stage and plays some smooth jazz on the trumpet. The place is not crowded and no one is paying attention to the music that much. They are all wearing earplugs. Some of them sip on their drinks, some talk in low voices into the next person's ear. People are sitting closer to one another. Closer than ever.

***

“I am getting sick of this noise. Why doesn't anyone stop it?”

“Oh really? You are getting sick? You are not alone on this planet, you know?”

“Not again, don't lecture me, please. Why have I got married to you in the first place, beats me.”

“Probably because you didn't want to end up alone. That much is obvious”

“Oh really? And you think you know me that well. The truth is you know shit about me. All these years we`ve been living together you'd think he knows you but he doesn't. You don't even know yourself.”

“Oh Come on, enough of that bullshit analysis. Analyze yourself for a change” 

 

“This argument is getting us nowhere. I’m going out for a while. Don’t wait up.”

“Yeah, just run away. I don’t care anymore. This noise is making me crazy. And try to find Boss while you at it”.

***

People are going crazy, and no wonder. The noise is such that it could make anyone crazy, even the calmest of all. It has spread everywhere. All over the country. Even the neighboring countries are increasingly reporting the same thing -  the humming at first and then the steady noise. No one knows where it is coming from. I have my own theories. Actually, a couple of them. It is either some strange world government experiment or the noise comes from some evil source, or it is neither. Since this new world government has been established with its center in the united nations, strange things have started to happen. Many of my friends noticed the same. Earthquakes, tsunamis, wars, and horrible crimes, horrible darkness started crawling out of unfathomable depths of the earth and shadows. I saw that darkness years before, ten years ago, actually. 

The birds stopped singing, the flowers lost their scent, the bees almost vanished. Everyone knew that but no one thought it was strange. Birds were flying, yes, but they have stopped singing for a long while. The phenomenon was reported all over the world because it happened all over the world. And then one day a pandemic broke out and everyone forgot the birds and the fact that some of them were starting attacking people for seemingly no reason.

People started making all sorts of theories and hypotheses as to what was going on. But none of them were accurate. I know what I have seen. I saw a terrible calamity approaching but no one believed me. Everyone called me a conspiracy theorist. Little did they know it was no theory. It was real.

***

The activists gathered in front of the town hall wearing Joker masks. This was bigger than the Gunpowder Plot. This was more mature than the Gunpowder Plot. The leaders made sure there were no traitors. It was easy. The leaders were man-readers. They were selected among the few who could not read people’s minds but had a gift of discriminating between good and evil, between angels and devils in humans. So no corrupt emotion could ever escape them. They used intuition as a tool and not logic. Soon they realized that logic was stupid and worthless in the fight to come. Ordinary logic was something not needed because it made no sense, so they abandoned it and started relying on intuition which was a very tricky business. Intuition can be deceiving. 

***

He went out in the street to vent his anger. She was right about one thing - the noise is making them crazy. 

“Hey, excuse me. Have you seen a cat around here?”

“No, I am sorry. Would you like a cigarette?”, the young girl offered a pack.

“No, I quit smoking ten years ago. This noise is terrible, don’t you think?”

“I am quite used to it, so I don’t even notice it anymore.”

“ Plus I have to find Boss, the cat. He just wanders off as he pleases and I just had a fight with my wife”, he smiles, “ I wish someone would comb my hair, it is so soothing”.

“Cigarettes soothe me and I don’t comb my or anybody’s hair ever”

“I wasn’t asking you”, he runs off after a cat that appeared from the alleyway.

“What a dimwit. I wish someone would comb my hair. People went totally nuts”. Her boyfriend approaches slowly with huge headphones. 

“Give me one cigarette”, he takes it from her ringed hand and she lights it for him.

“Man, I can’t believe this. Did you get everything?”

“Yep. I got us fake passports too”.

“Great “ and they kiss. 

“When will the rest come?”

“They should be here any minute. Who was that guy you just spoke with? You know you can’t be seen with anyone!”

“Calm down. He’s just a neighbor. He asked me if I saw his damn cat. That’s all”.

“Why didn’t you hide for crying out loud?”

“Calm down. I haven’t been sleeping for days and finally slept for twenty hours and I am hungry. Let’s grab something to eat!”

“No, we are waiting for the guys!”

***

“Where’s that damn cat”, he is talking out loud. The one in the alleyway was not his. People in the street are looking at him as if he was a madman. He doesn't care. He enters the bar where the trumpet player just finished playing his smooth jazz number. 

“Look what the cat brought in”, says the trumpet player approaching the bar, “what brings you here after all this time?”

 

“I am looking for my cat.”

“That's interesting. Does that happen often?”

“If you mean if he wanders off often then the answer is, yeah, it's been happening lately more than I would like to admit. I can`t live without that cat and he cannot live without me and cannot leave me for some reason. He disappears often and comes back often. But hasn't come back for a month now and I am worried about him. We have a special connection, a spiritual one. We communicate. Especially at a distance, in a radius of 5 km but it seems he has wandered off somewhere more distant than before.”

“Let me buy you a drink. I was just about to get some whiskey.

“Yeah, give me double whiskey, straight.”

“You sure look like you need a drink.” The trumpet player orders two whiskeys. They drink in silence embalmed with the noise. 

“This noise makes you forget everything. Sometimes I can’t decide whether it is a blessing or a curse”, said the cat owner.

“I think it’s a total hell. It brings the worst in people as far as I can see.”, says the trumpet player, “I simply choose to not care. If I did I would stop playing my trumpet immediately. What’s the point in playing when the noise makes every note coming out of the trumpet dissonant. It’s like I am tone deaf. That’s enough to make me crazy in itself but strangely enough, I just don’t care. Plus, you gotta make a living, right?”

“Yes, I am sure you are right”.

“How come this cat of yours wanders off like that, why do you let it?”

“It just happened that way, I guess. We found him on the street and took him in. The first chance he had he went out. I thought that was the last we would see of him but he went back. From then on it became like a ritual. We would feed him, and let him out. He would scratch the door to let us know he was back and we would let him in. Sometimes he was all covered with scratches and wounds, probably from catfights or who knows. Some kids from the neighborhood once mounted a camera on him to see where he was going. That was something!”

“Maybe you should do the same. Put a camera on him and see where he goes.”

“I might just do that”, the cat owner swallowed his whisky nervously. “If he ever comes back.”

“Oh, he will, don't you worry. You said earlier you communicate? What did you mean?”, the trumpet player says with amusement in his eyes.

“A long story. Suffice it to say I just know where he goes even without a camera and I understand him. You just need to be very still and you will know. I am too nervous and distracted by this noise and worried about him to establish the connection.”

“That's interesting. When did you first notice you have that special power?”

“Nah, it's not a special power. I know it sounds idiotic but everybody has that power. Everyone can communicate with any animal. You just need to be really still, like I said.”

“Just like that? You are quiet and you don`t say anything and that's it. That`s a guarantee you will understand any animal. Or you start speaking their language?”

“There is no animal language. You just know what they are thinking. I don't know how that works but it does. You are one of those people that needs everything explained. Like this noise, can you explain it? Do we know where it comes from, what produces it?

“All right, I understand we know nothing, but nonetheless, I am not buying into your story. And I am damn sure I need an explanation for everything.”

“Suit yourself. I'm done. Thanks for the drink. See you around.” The cat owner goes out of the bar and looks at his watch. It is quarter to one p.m. He doesn't know where to go next.

***

I know what I have seen and I didn't like it one bit. I know I am not the only one, too. Others have seen it - the enormous shadow looming over the city. It wasn't visible to the ordinary people and even if they did see it they would not care. They don't care as it is, about anything. All they care about is food, sleep, procreation, and money. Menkind reduced to cattle. Except that cattle don't care about the money. 

“Hey you, philosopher, where are the rest of the guys?”, the boyfriend asked me.

“They were supposed to come at midnight, and it's almost one p.m.”, the girl said.

“ I don`t know. Did you see the shadow? I think it is getting thicker. It might be producing that noise.”, I said.

“Yeah, we've seen it all right but it doesn't have anything to do with the noise because it appeared long before the shadow”, said the boyfriend.

“Wait, look!”, the girlfriend is showing us the news on her phone. The news said that half of the city vanished ten minutes ago. All the houses, people, pets, parks, stores, everything. I thought it was a joke. Everything now seems like a dream. But it was not a dream nor a joke. We went in the opposite direction of other citizens trying to escape the city. There was nothing to see there. The news was not fake. We could not believe it with our eyes. It was as if someone used rubber and deleted half of the drawing leaving the paperwhite, while the other half was left intact. 

That was exactly what I had seen. 

“This is worse than the noise and sleepless nights,” said the girl.

We stood on top of the highest of the buildings and watched speechless at the blank gray void stretching before our eyes as the shadow progressed towards us slowly but inevitably.

“Yep, this is worse than the noise. What the hell is going on?”, I said.

The boyfriend stood in utter horror. We were looking at one another speechless.  

“I need a drink”, the boyfriend said.

“Are you nuts? Everyone is fleeing the town and you want a drink!” the girlfriend was looking at him as if he was stark mad, which he probably was at that moment. 

“He's right. There`s nothing we can do. We can`t stop any of this. We can just wait until this shadow swallows us whole. Let's go grab a drink” was all I could say, knowing that there was really nothing could do. We wanted to rob a bank but now it seems that the rest of the gang just disappeared or were erased. Just like that, wiped out from the face of the earth like they never existed.

“Yeah, you have a point”, the boyfriend looked at me.

“About what?”, I asked.

“ They probably got eaten by that thing.” said the boyfriend point at the slowly but inevitably approaching shadow. “ There's nothing we can do anymore for them or for us. There's no point in anything anymore.

“Don't tell me you can now read my mind?”, I was shocked. 

“Wait, you want to tell me you didn't say that out loud?”

‘No! Now I need a drink.”

“Wait what are the two of you saying? You can read each other's minds now, is that it?” the girl started laughing hysterically. 

“Can't you see? It's probably that noise and that shadow causing all this. What else?” said the boyfriend. “Let's go before it swallows us”.

Epilogue 

Down in the streets people were frantically running away, trampling upon anything that moved. No one cared about no one. The cat owner managed to find his cat eventually and put a vest on it equipped with a camera so he would see where the cat was going. He left his wife for good. There was no point beating the dead horse anymore. The trumpet player quit playing 

because it was pointless with the endless humming of the nerve-wracking sound, that made all their lives disharmonious and futile. Half of the gang was erased by the shadow, just like half of humanity. No one knew how to stop it and we're expecting their doom. 

There were no silver linings. Everyone resigned finally to the fact that there was no escaping the shadow so they stopped running away from it. The bars were once again filled with 

people ordering their favorite drinks. Some were engaged in criminal activities. Everyone seemed to have chosen their side - with the light or with the darkness. The life that was once gray, became black and white. It became a dichotomy. There was nothing in between. The time started moving backward, but not for everyone. There were those who could outrun the shadow - the privileged ones. Those who once outrun the various pandemics, financial crises, or wars. Did they have some special powers with which they evaded everything and prolonged their lives of misery? Of course not. 

They possessed a craft with which they could live long prosperous lives but the craft did not provide 

them with true happiness. So they were all doomed to live long unhappy lives. The craft they possessed finally got out of hand and so they started envying those who could die before them. Once you enter the pact there is no way out, because it cannot be unbroken by any raft, fire, bomb, or desire. 

THE END