The phone beeps and the night turns red.
2 AM is an odd time for someone to message or call and yet, you know exactly who it is. You could be sleeping or reading a book, watching some Netflix or lying in bed, staring at the roof. But in that moment, you’re alive.
To message or not. To give in to that person or not. Yet again. Over and over again.
We all have that one person who won’t exist during the day but only come alive in the middle of the night.
The one we’re chasing all through the day, messaging between meetings, calling during lunch hour. Waiting to hear back from them while sitting at the dinner table, completely ignorant of the conversation that’s happening right next to us.
The one we’re messaging standing outside the bar even as our friends are busy having a fun time inside.
We’ve all had that one person in our lives. And some of us continue to have them till this date.
Let’s call them night-crawlers, shall we?
They eerily rise from the ‘dead’, crawl into our mind, revive our soul, revitalize our desire.
They know we want ’em. They know we can’t help it. That we’re powerless. Especially at 2 in the night. They press the right buttons and our vulnerable self shatters into a million pieces, each one craving them more than the other.
These night-crawlers are manipulative monsters. When it’s day time, they’re never around. But when it’s night and their lust is on an overdrive, they’re back in our life.
They always have an excuse. They always give a reason. And we always submit. Give in. Always!
Why do we do it, over and over again?
Why is that 2 AM message so hard to resist? Ignoring these toxic monsters can’t be so difficult, right? They ruin our day by not being around and then, ruin our night by coming back to us. Just for the night. A booty call. A drunken rendezvous. Dirty. Very, very dirty.
Why do we do this to ourselves?
Don’t we know any better? Actually, we do. And yet, we can’t resist ’em.
We’re willing to go through the same drill over and over again. And they’re happy to take advantage of our desperation.
It’s like a fetish. Or, are we nothing but masochists?
It’ll lead to nothing but pain. Self-inflicted pain. Those 2 AM messages won’t stop. And we know it! That person won’t ever realise what they’re doing. And even if they do, they won’t stop. They’re getting what they want and they’ve never cared about anything else.
Why do we give in every damn time? Is it because we’re hopeful that yet-another night might change it all? Or are we scared of being alone with our own selves?
Is it loneliness that makes us do it? Or an addiction to the pain? Some twisted melancholia?
It’ll be 2 AM in the night again. That phone will buzz again. Our hearts will pound again.
Burning with desire, that person will want us. But just for the night. Nothing more. And we will give in again. Like we have many times before.
Maybe we can stop tonight? Put the phone on silent and let the monster rot. Actually, not tonight. It’s way too tempting to resist!