4:37 a.m.

The third night I saw them, I’d just popped two more useless Ambiens and was watching the numbers on my phone burn their way through the dark. 4:37 AM. Again. Always. The pills rattled inside me like tiny dice being rolled by a bored god.

The fog outside my window was that special brand of horror-movie hungry — no, this isn’t that kind of story — but patient-predator hungry, waiting to swallow anyone dumb enough to walk into its grey belly. So naturally, I put my shoes on.

Insomnia’s a funny thing. Not the ha-ha funny, but strange-hmmm funny, like those dreams where your teeth fall out and you’re happy about it. After six months of it, you think maybe sleep is just something other people do, like having a 401(k) or remembering to water their plants.

The street was empty. Even the cats have given up and gone home. My footsteps made wet, slick sounds on the pavement. The lamplight turned the fog into dirty cotton candy and spun itself into shapes that shouldn’t make sense but somehow did.

That’s when I saw the first one: a shadow that wasn’t. It stood where the path curves past Old Peter Murphy’s house, except the crazy old man moved out two years ago, and nobody lives there now. The figure hunched over, defensive, like it was carrying something heavy. Just like I used to stand back when Mark’s leaving was still fresh enough to hurt.

I blinked. It stayed. I walked closer. It didn’t move.

My phone glowed: 4:37 AM.

I ran home.

The next night, sleep didn’t come. Predictably. It never did. The numbers on my bedside clock radio flipped to 4:37, and my feet were already in my shoes.

This time outside, there were two of them. The hunched one was back, but now another one stood beside it, but it stood straighter, arms loose at its sides. It moved like… well, like me. Exactly like me. The way I’d started standing recently, when the weight of everything had shifted from unbearable to just heavy.

The fog swirled between us, making shapes like memories trying to form. I stayed longer this time. There was something about these figures felt right, like finding an old photo you forgot you needed to see.

My phone’s screen lit up: 4:37 AM.

When I got home, I actually felt tired for the first time in months.

But on the third night, I was ready. I didn’t even try to sleep. I just sat in my reading chair, watching the clock pixel its way toward our time. The fog was already waiting at the window like a cat that knows you’re about to feed it.

4:37 AM.

This time, the street felt different. The wet sounds under my feet were almost musical. The fog had texture, like walking through layers of soft static we used to see on an old TV screen.

Three figures stood on the path now. The hunched one furthest back. The straight-standing one in the middle. And a new one, in front. This one stood tall, head high, like someone who’d finally remembered how to breathe properly. Like someone who was going somewhere.

That’s when I understood. Time isn’t a straight line; it’s more like fog, swirling and connecting moments that are separate but aren’t. Sometimes, if you’re lucky (or sleepless) enough, you catch glimpses of yourself moving through it.

I walked closer. None of them moved. The fog connected us in grey threads that felt more real than anything in my daylight life had in months.

My phone buzzed in my pocket. I pulled it out, expecting the usual numbers.

4:38 AM.

When I looked up, the figures were gone, but the fog remained, and for the first time in forever, I felt its welcome instead of its weight.

That night, I slept for ten hours straight.

And if I sometimes still take walks in the fog, well…some stories don’t need endings. Some just need witnesses who understand that time, like fog, can show you all yourselves at once.

If you’re willing to stand still and really look.