A Midnight Owl for One Night

It’s 2 a.m. and I’m still wide awake. It felt strange because I’m not a midnight owl at all. I’m one of those people who sleep before 10 p.m. without struggle, and the only time I stay past 11:30 p.m. is when I’m outside in the midst of people. Even during exams, friends used to admire the fact that I could sleep peacefully with an 8 a.m. paper the next morning and another by 1 p.m. I stopped explaining that if I joined them to burn the night, whatever I read wouldn’t be remembered in the morning. So I found my own study time; early mornings, quiet afternoons in the library, and late evenings. Once I realised that night reading was not for me, I stopped struggling with it.

However, yesterday I wondered what it would feel like to become a midnight owl for just one night. So I decided to stay awake for some hours and see how it feels. By 12 a.m., everywhere was already silent. I listened as the usual noises outside faded until all I could hear were tiny crickets. The air was calm and soothing. That was when I understood why I don’t stay up at night; it is simply too comforting for me to remain awake.

I stayed up until 1 a.m., reading a nonfiction book by David Grann, Killers of the Flower Moon. A peaceful night paired with a true-crime story felt like an odd combination, but it worked. Time passed quietly, and before I knew it, it was 2:30 a.m.
The most lovely thing about the night is the quietness. Experiencing that stillness made me understand why many students prefer reading at night. There’s no distraction from animals or people; anyone who's obsessed with quiet and order would probably function twice as well during the night.

An event in the book made my mind wander off to my secondary school days. It was a boarding school so we had students from the nearby states attending. We were children from different backgrounds coming together to co-exist. There were always stories that sounded so real. Scary stories. Most of them were like horror movies. These children would tell you it happened right under their nose, in their family, village, or compound. But the scariest stories were always told by the senior students who came to the school before us. They would tell us how ghosts used to come around at night to torment some students, especially the beautiful ones.

There was a story about a girl who lost her voice because she spoke harshly to a ghost while sweeping; she had thought the shadow belonged to a junior student. There were many stories about girls who slept inside but woke up outside under the fig tree; some woke up on the playground, and one was said to have been found hanging on the wall.

Those days, especially in my first year I would sleep very early so I wouldn’t be the only one awake if a ghost entered the room. I also hated sleeping on the floor so a wandering ghost wouldn’t step on me. I preferred the upper bunks!

I don’t know if any of those stories were true, but I graduated from that school without seeing a single ghost. Is it possible that children can come up with such big lies? These stories were passed from one generation to another. I even remember my classmate telling them to her junior friends like she was there when it happened.

Currently, I don’t believe in ghost stories. I’m no longer afraid of the night, hence the reason I could stay awake comfortably yesterday.

A few minutes to 3 a.m., my eyes began to close and my head nodded on its own. I knew the experiment had come to an end, so I closed my book app, whispered some prayers, and I was asleep the moment my head touched the pillow.

The funny thing is that I would probably still wake up before 5 a.m because I’m a morning person by default. :D