No wonder I lay awake sometimes at night unable to go back to sleep.

He woke at 2:17 a.m.—not because of a noise, not because of a dream, but because something in the room had shifted. The air felt thinner, as if the house had paused its breathing.

For a moment he lay still, listening. The night was holding itself very carefully. No wind. No refrigerator hum. Even the old clock in the hallway seemed to have stopped ticking, as though time itself had stepped out to stretch its legs.

He swung his feet to the floor. The boards were cool, but not cold. He felt as though he had stepped into someone else’s room, a place that looked like his but wasn’t quite aligned with the version he knew.

The hallway was darker than usual. Not pitch black—more like the darkness had texture, a soft grain to it, like velvet. He walked toward the living room, guided by a faint glow he couldn’t place. It wasn’t moonlight. It wasn’t any lamp he owned. It was more like the room itself was remembering light.

And then he saw it.

A figure sat in his favorite chair. Not threatening, not even fully solid—just a presence, shaped like a person but made of the same faint glow that had drawn him in. It looked comfortable, almost at home, as if it had been waiting for him to wake up.

He didn’t speak. Somehow he knew words would scatter the moment like birds.

The figure lifted its head. Its face was indistinct, but he felt the weight of its attention. Not heavy—more like recognition. As though it knew him from somewhere he couldn’t recall.

Slowly, it raised one hand and pointed toward the window.

He turned.

Outside, the world was washed in silver. Not moonlight—something softer, more deliberate. The trees stood perfectly still, their leaves suspended as if caught mid‑rustle. The street was empty, but not lonely. It felt… expectant.

When he looked back, the figure was gone. The chair was just a chair again.

The house exhaled.

The refrigerator hummed back to life. The hallway clock resumed its ticking. The darkness lost its velvet texture and became ordinary shadow.

He stood there for a long moment, letting the normal world settle around him again. Whatever had visited him—whatever had nudged him awake—it hadn’t meant harm. It had simply wanted him to see something. Or remember something. Or maybe just know that the night held more than sleep.

He returned to bed, feeling oddly peaceful. As he drifted off, he thought he heard the faintest whisper of that silver glow, like a curtain being drawn across a window.

When he woke in the morning, everything was ordinary again.

But he kept glancing at the chair, wondering if the night would ever pause its breathing for him again.

I am going to stop eating a banana before I go to bed.