3am Eternal

What time is love? It's 3am and is the sound of breathing and the sound of nothing on the main road. On the carretera. What was the sound on that same carretera, do you suppose, the sound when that car went headlong into that cyclist? It was not far from here. Do you suppose he screamed? How would that work, do you think? Suddenly, a car comes straight at you. Do you have time to emit a sound? Why the hell am I thinking about that? Why am I thinking of it at 3am? Thinking how far away was it really? The report said Can Picafort, but also at position 24 kilometres. 24 kilometres on the carretera; that's Muro not Can Pic. Had it occurred at 3am, it would have been heard. It would have broken the breathing. Sit bolt upright out of sleep that had barely begun. Eyes staring.

3am. There's silence on that road. Open the shutter and the monster pine will be brooding, as it always broods in puffed and billowed silhouette against the thin orange of distant streets in Sa Pobla and Muro. Count the time between cars. A sheep jumping game. Was that it? Sheep jumping? Was that what was meant to send you to sleep? Why would that work? Ancients of moo-moo. Cows jumping. That would be altogether much more fun.

That silence continues though. And then the squeaking of the early-spring frogs and night birds. More a squawking that comes suddenly. The frog chorus has not started yet. Not in the way it really kicks in. Maybe a week or two to go yet. The massed terraces of frogs in Albufera, rubbing and chatting and scraping through the night, a crescendo that starts from nowhere and continues for hours - a ceremony of spring and mating, or whatever it is that drives frogs on, this screeching above the throb and pulse of the power station. Drum 'n' bass goes techno in a nature-manmade collision of night sound. But still yet, there is little - nothing - that drives on the road, on the carretera. Then, in the distance, what's that? And in no time, it rushes past. How fast was that? Where do you suppose the police go at 3am? Maybe that was the police. I'd always presumed there were armies of them at all the roundabouts. 3am.

3am eternal. Maybe half an hour passes between cars. Can't be that long surely. Is that the hoot of an owl? Are there owls? And so it's another sleeping pill. That'll do it. Eventually. Ever since I suffered that attack of semantics (3 January: A Good Heart These Days Is Hard To Find). And so, because it's 3am, again, and sleep seems as distant as a plane that might just be flying above were it allowed to be, there's another game. How to sleep. It's Grim Up North. That's where the game comes in. Repeat over and over the names of towns in the north. The north will rise again:

"Bolton, Barnsley, Nelson, Colne,
Burnley, Bradford, Buxton, Crewe,
Warrington, Widnes, Wigan, Leeds,
Northwich, Nantwich, Knutsford, Hull."

So it becomes:
"Alcúdia, Pollensa, Búger, Lluc,
Sa Pobla, Muro, Campanet, Vent,
Mal Pas, Siller, Singala, Pi,
Can Picafort, Barcares are all in the north."

You try to put out of your mind that it's 3am. Out of your mind the fear it is 3am eternal. No, no, that's not it. It's just a game. To try and sleep. And it's all been based around a chance email and mention of Grim Up North (thanks, Steve). It's a fine title. It should be used. Maybe it will be. But for now. For then. At 3am eternal, bring the beat back ...


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Carly Simon (http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1cj0j_carly-simonnobody-does-it-better-li_music). Today's title - today has partly been a paean to one of the greatest: who were?

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