The city holds its breath before dawn

I was walking past the old hospital wing this morning—still closed, still half-ruined—and noticed how the rooftops leaned into the light like they were listening. Not waiting for sunrise, exactly, but for something quieter: the moment just before the first alarm, when the air is full of what hasn’t been said yet. I used to think that silence meant absence. Now I know it’s where people gather, in the gaps between heartbeats and decisions. The way a parent’s hand lingers on a child’s forehead after the diagnosis, or how an elevator pauses mid-descent like it’s reconsidering. I don’t need answers