The nightingale has sung. It’s the time when many, if not most, have hugged their pillows, bolsters, or the ones next to them (for a lucky few) and gone into their deep slumber.

I exited the theater, half yawning, negating through a restless crowd of Indians who seemingly are in a mighty rush to get back home and hit the sack. I glanced at my watch. 3. a.m.

I stood still after a while, and decided to wait until the crowd make their hasty exits from the theater, before talking leisurely walk down the stairs. The night was still alive around me. Restaurants are buzzing with people, there are hordes of cars crowding the road as well. It’s 3 a.m, KL has to be this alive even at this time?

The term nightlife itself is associated with nothing but one memory- clubs, drinks and everything else that come with it.

So we decided we would take a stroll (in the comfort of our car of course) in and around the most famous clubbing areas near KLCC before we hit yore of some badly timed ‘breakfast’.

If traffic was atrocious enough, the behavior of those on the road was even more atrocious. Driving four wheelers and upper middle class cars, most obviously rented ones, groups of fours and fives were making a mad rush to rows of clubs located around this nightlife hotspot.

Red lights weren’t adhered to; green lights meant nothing. They needed to go to their clubs, and get their drinks- that’s all that mattered. I peeked from my window and tried to see who were the drivers of some three vehicles that were blocking my way. It’s green for me, but I can’t move as they have completely crowded the road in front of me.

Needless to say, I did not see Malaysians. They honked their way past the traffic, some cursing in their self-styled English that makes them look ‘cool’ to everyone else around them. But nobody was impressed. And I wasn’t impressed. It’s my country, not yours, I grumbled. I decided against the ‘stroll’ and headed straight to uptown Bangsar to grab a proper meal before going back.

As I got down from my car, my glance was stolen almost immediately by a young woman standing on the balcony of a pub near my parking slot. She was well dressed in light blue, and is seemingly starring blankly at whatever she could stare at. I looked at her and wondered what might be going on in her mind. And as if the floodgates of the night had opened aloft, she broke into sobs and ultimately into tears. A girlfriend rushed and handed her tissues, trying to pacify that broken heart.

She might have thought coming out for some drinks in a pub could heal her pain. But little did she know starring blankly into an empty night will do exactly the opposite. Bad idea.

I was seated and ready to enjoy my meal when I saw a busty lady making her way into the outlet and took a seat right opposite us. She fiddled on her phone clumsily, in a way so obvious that I noticed, made a couple of seemingly desperate calls, before she slouched on her seat sideways and began glancing once again into the empty night filled only by flickering streetlights.

Wearing a short, dark dress that seemed to be tailor to be impress a certain someone, her quiet stare soon became something that reeked of loneliness and the feel of deceit. She was trying her phone again and again, and she has gotten tired of it. But she has to keep trying. She is here, and she had to wait.

Her wait lasted an hour, before a man who seemed to have built more muscles than compassion walked in stealthily and sat beside her. The sadness turned into happiness. The little drop of tears from her eyes quickly disappeared. The man had made her happy, with his very presence. But he had no idea what he made her feel with his absence. Ignorance.

I was walking to my car when I saw a couple walking down the alley in front of me. I had seen them earlier, like a perfectly happy couple chatting through the night. And if a sudden storm erupted, the man (or boy), a skeletal version of Jason Mraz nevertheless, rushed to his car, started it, reversed it, and took off into the misty night, leaving his baffled girlfriend behind.

Hands raised in uncertainty, the Mauritius-girl uttered a slight ‘what the..’ and made her way back through the alley, as I wondered what might be her next course of action.

As I hit the sack finally that night (or to be more precise morning), one fact dawned upon me. When the nightingale sings, it is time to sleep indeed, not the time to be alive. For all those who are alive through the night seem to have so much misery enclosed within them they find easier to find ‘entertainment’ in the night.

But for those who are brave to face life no matter what happened, they’d still wake up and enjoy dawn like a very select few do nowadays.

At times when living gives you pain, you find easier to drown away your worries with a couple of drinks or a night out in which you can tear down all the masks of your worldly appearance and let the animal in you reign.

But when morning sets in, the dawn urges you to face your life again. Everything you did during the night gets erased like it never existed. You have not moved on from your pain. All you ever did is to let your adrenaline to hide your pain like a mask for a while. Dawn is the end of your pretence.

And many have lost the guts to face the dawn anymore- because it means you have to face life again.

I take a sip of my tea in the morning as usual, choosing to face the morning. Because nights may give you some time out from your pain, but mornings gives you something more valuable than that. When the ray of the sun shines upon your balcony, it gives hope. Somewhere, there is a tomorrow.

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