Someone is awake in the second floor apartment. Blue light glows softly from the window—the blinds drawn—and on the TV, a man’s voice drones an incoherent hum of speech. My feet tap the sidewalk like an interruption.

It is an illusion to think I am the only one yawning at the neon-lit street. If anything, I am intruding upon the hour of bus drivers and gas station attendants. Maybe the people in these cars will be dropped off at the departure gate with heavy bags and a tight hug from a good friend. Maybe they’re rushing to the hospital, awakened out of peaceful routine by an urgent reminder of overlooked mortality. Maybe this driver, alone in their car, is just now beginning a journey that will change their life.

It’s the hour of the Eglinton West construction worker and the 24 hour café waitress. I can see it now: her clean shirt and tired eyes. The functional cut of their grey-speckled garb. She casts them a practiced smile, her only table of customers. Perhaps one of them prefers tea to coffee. His calloused fingers dunk the tag on its fragile string with surprising gentleness. When they stack their dishes, the silverware clatters melodiously above the tinny cafe radio.

Maybe the man with his medical mask and his work bag, passing me, no eye contact, making his way south, savours the chill of the pre-dawn summer morning just as I do. He rolls up his shirt sleeves and feels the caress of air slide goosebumps along his arm.

Too soon the smoggy heat will smother the streets more thoroughly than traffic. And that one bright star, winking above the wisps of purple cloud like a friend with a secret to tell, will be lost in the blaze of dawn.