So much happens after nightfall that we never know of.

Every night, new babies cry, and new parents, they cry too.

Every night, horses lie down in their stalls and stand up again to ward off wolves, wolves that never come. Clouds move, winds pick up, rain pours over cities and fields and stretches of ocean.

Tonight, like every night, on a factory loading bay somewhere bleary-eyed immigrants hunch with cold fingers in their pockets, waiting for trucks. A mismatched couple screech insults at each other further down the long block. At last, they get into a car and it’s quiet again.

In a bakery nearby, bread is being made. It’s soft and hot and smells of morning. Tonight like every night, newspapers are being printed and children being made. Tomorrow’s essentials!

At dawn, shattered beer bottles lie on suburban streets. Birds peck at chips dumped on a curb. Forgotten laundry hangs outside a cosy country home, smelling of flowers. An elderly man in the kitchen tries to load the coffee maker without waking his wife. In a bend near his house, a car has shrunk to half its lenght against a tree.

Still, half of human kind lie and dream. Babies and family parties, shooters and killers, long forgotten friends. Deaths and births and reunions. Fears and embarrassments for a fleeting moment nearly come true.

When morning comes, for most people things find their places again. The sky is up and the ground is down, a pleasing frame for a young day. All that just happened – or didn’t really – will soon be just yesterday’s news.