FLAKES: Sleepless in the wee hours

The later hours of the night are the realm of the naughtiest humans. ILLUSTRATION| JOSEPH NGARI

What you need to know:

  • Whether we call it late night or early morning, these later hours of the night are the realm of the naughtiest humans: drunkards, bandits, plotters, and also the less naughty humans: shift workers, budget travellers, and insomniacs.

  • These are the minutes when cars race through the streets, at the speed of Alcoblow-evasion, hoping to get home before death or the police catch up with them.

The short span of time between midnight and 5am has a mystical and magical quality. In the simple life of the countryside these are the hours of nothingness: the sound of silence, the sight of darkness and whiff of odourless air.

It is a time when only sleep can thrive.

On the other hand, in the city there is no silence. The quietest sound is the perpetual hum of traffic and power lines, punctuated by the occasional scream of a siren – sounds we tune out so that we can rest.

The city does not tolerate any emptiness: the nearest thing to darkness is a shadowy neon yellow, and the air is always tainted with the smell of hydrocarbons.

Other mammals have night vision and thrive at this time of night. They hunt in the coolness, undisturbed by man and manners. It is said that only mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun, but in the moonlit coolness of midnight a host of animals and

humans are out and about.

Whether we call it late night or early morning, these later hours of the night are the realm of the naughtiest humans: drunkards, bandits, plotters, and also the less naughty humans: shift workers, budget travellers, and insomniacs.

These are the minutes when cars race through the streets, at the speed of Alcoblow-evasion, hoping to get home before death or the police catch up with them.

These are the best hours for people whose mind age lies between 16 and 35, those for whom sleep in still an option. The rest of us are carried off to dreamland by youth and cocoa or by age, exhaustion, orthopaedic mattresses, sleep masks and chamomile.

But there are new reasons to keep awake at night. Some people head off to the local shopping mall to enjoy a 24-hour economy shopping spree.

It is true that you are unlikely to encounter a trolley-thief during these ungodly hours, but you also have little chance of a chance encounter with a friend. (Perhaps, in these days of scandal, this is a good thing!) Even if you decide to stay in, the Internet and

television provide entertainment where in the past boredom would have driven you between the sheets. And if you have never read all night then you have not discovered one of the greatest pleasures of the literate age!

It is the combination of electricity, alcohol and public transport that has transformed the human race from larks to night owls. The superstitious stories that used to keep youngsters cowering near the homestead have lost their force in the face of Reddy

Kilowatt (electricity). Indeed what we fear most in the night is the loss of the energy that powers those indispensable phones and tablets. Suddenly darkness means not being available to catch the latest tweet!

For some, the early hours are the hours of creativity. It was Anne Bronte who wrote:

I love the silent hour of night,

For blissful dreams may then arise,

Revealing to my charmed sight,

What may not bless my waking eyes.  

But perhaps she did not realise that the “charmed sight” of youth becomes the “baggy eyes” of middle age. There are many things one needs after forty but the most important one is beauty sleep facilitated by a clear conscience.

This weekend, do not waste the magical hours by staying awake, sleep to your fill.