Late-Night Eye Gazing
For some reason, this only works either in the middle of a massive city - London, Tokyo, New York in a pinch - or the middle of nowhere. I use the middle of nowhere, in part because it’s cheaper but also because I don’t just get the sounds but the smells: chestnut trees, wildflowers, freshly cut grass after a rainy afternoon. Any time of the year is fine, but all my best experiences have been in the summer.
Preparation starts an hour or so before bed with a large meal and a copious amount of chocolate, all consumed in front of a bright screen, preferably displaying disheartening news. These specifics will vary from person to person, but the aim is the same: to wake up in the middle of the night feeling vaguely anxious.
Once the body is suitably prepared, turn your attention to your bedroom. You must sleep alone for this to work, preferably with the door closed. I find that old sheets work better than freshly washed ones - about a week old seems to be the sweet spot. Most importantly of all, however, the room must be almost completely dark. That is, the room must be dark enough that it appears completely black upon entering, but not so dark that it remains black after several minutes of adjustment. And what little light there is must be white. The source is not particularly important. I tend to use the horrible fluorescent streetlight at the far end of my parents’ cul-de-sac, but a phone screen turned face down, a laptop left on in another room, or the standby light of a television or air conditioning system will work just as well, so long as all the other conditions mentioned above are satisfied.
Fall asleep. If you’re lucky, you’ll wake up from a disconcerting dream about two hours before sunrise. Resist the urge to check the precise time or get up and use the bathroom; your focus should be on a windowless wall a few metres from your face. Take a few shallow breaths, and you’ll see it: for just a moment, the exact shade of her eyes. There, in the blacks of the wardrobe, the purples of the clothes hanging on chair backs, and the pinkish-greyish-blues of the wall itself, all swirling like fish in a koi pond, the faintest glimpse of what I once knew so well. The heart tightens; the throat expands.
Then the light shifts, and the moment passes.