Four 0′clock in the morning. Four ayh emm. 4am… Often passed during sleep, that time that doesn’t exist for most people. But it does exist, I mean we agree to have it on the clock. It’s there, but what happens at 4am? It’s far too late to be considered night, and even though “morning” is in four o’clock in the morning, it’s much to early to be thought of, really as morning. Here, I will share with you some the events surrounding that most surreal of hours: 4 o’clock in the morning. This elusive hour, both very late and very early, appears often in art and literature as a way to describe the most extreme states of affairs.
Paul Simon references it. Epic 80′s band, Night Ranger wrote a song about it. Children’s author, Judy Miller even has book about making a grilled cheese sandwich at 4am… who knew?
I was first introduced to 4am as a child. I was eight or nine, and due to insomnia, or perhaps nonsense rebellion toward rest, I often found myself awake. The time was announced by the thud of the newspaper hitting the driveway, followed by the high pitched whine of the delivery truck’s revers gear. That was then, but even now I am quite familiar with that purgatory of time.
As of late (hehe, get it? “late”. Okay, bad pun) I wake up at 4am to go to work. And while at work, at least when twenty four hours of service is on the bill, I will likely be woken again at 4am to tend to needs of the city. Having my Circadian rhythm dropped to asystole , I fuss about with strangers bodies, and with the flash and style of an open mic stand up comic I place an action on their afflictions. Or perhaps more accurately, as is often the case at 4am, lack of afflictions.
This is not to down play the very real fact that emergencies still do happen at 4am. Cardiac arrests happen at 4am. Diabetics become hypoglycemic at 4am. fights and assaults happen at 4am. The flu happens at 4am. Really the flu happened two or three days prior, it’s only at 4am do become involved. And Traffic collisions. Either due to bad weather, alcohol, poor choice of doing The Fast and the Furious reenactments, or any combination of the three, Some of the most spectacular, violent, J J Abrams traffic collisions I’ve ever been on have happened around 4am.
Seizures happen at 4am too. Which I find a bit odd. Not the seizure, but rather the fact that I find out about the seizure that happens at 4am. You see, it’s quite unlikely that the person having the seizure called 911 during the event, or indeed even called out to someone else to do it for them. And of course after the supposed seizure there is a postictal period that greatly limits the person from calling for help there after for some time. This then means that a second person must be present with the first, and must either witness or become aware of the seizure as it happens, and then they must call for help. Which then presents the question, what were they doing up at 4am in the first place?
Other, less tragic things happen at 4am. Stores that are open 24hrs get as near to being closed, without actually closing at 4am. Fog happen at 4am too. Even in the middle of summer, strange, thick, spooky fog can roll in. The paper is delivered, we learned that earlier. Oh, and ghost hunting television shows do their “investigations” at 4am as well.
Its funny that I write this on the second of four days off. One of the few times that I don’t need to be up at four o’clock in the morning, but perhaps I still should try. You know, to keep up momentum and habit. Regardless, realize that there is a world of events that happen in that hour between three and five, whether you are there for it or not.
but until then, get some sleep would you.
