To say that the city never sleeps is both a lie and the truth.

As a lie- I can hear nothing except our breaths intertwining and the slow ticking of a clock.

There are lights, certainly. Outside the windows a million neon lights are vying for my attention. Come out, come out, come out, they plead. Look at listen and let me take you anywhere. Look at what won't move or speak back to me but will calm down the frenetic energy running through me.

I am the thrumming, beating heart of the city.

She is lying next to me, the only other existing thing for miles, it feels like.

How I want to shake her awake. Then, maybe, we could go outside up onto the roof. Lie down and look at the sky, where the light pollution would be showing but the lights themselves would be invisible. We would talk about things. Summer. Places we want to go together.

Flowers- the potted plants growing on my windowsill. The big, proper ones that grow out in forests I have never seen.

"There are some plants," she told me once, "out in rainforests. They wait until an insect crawls inside, then snaps them up."

"D'you think we'll ever see anything like that?" I asked.

She shrugged and shook her hair out of her face. "Maybe. Do you want to?"

"It would make a change from all these." -I waved my hand towards the vases here and there. "And, you know. We met over orchids."

It's the truth. She says I didn't look like the sort to grow plants.

"Something has to keep me company at night," I snorted.

She raised her eyebrows, but smiled. "What do you mean?"

"You're always asleep." I said simply.

She shrugged. "Would you like me to stay awake?"

"Not if you'll be irritable and exhausted."

She laughed and leaned forward to kiss me.

I am lying in bed listening to the noises of the city, but I can't hear anything except her.

In. Out. In.

Hold...

And a tiny slice of the city is taken away.

Out.

And, with that, given back.

I go over to the window and throw open the curtains. The streetlights fall onto her face and bare back.

"Don't you ever sleep?" I say aloud, to nobody in particular.

There is no answer, but she lets out an audible sigh in her sleep and the sheets rustle for a moment.

"Talk to me!" I shout.

A breeze blows the curtains around me. They brush against the back of my neck and I shiver dispite the warm summer night.

"Is that the best you can do?"
Nobody can answer me, because I cannot answer myself.

I lie down next to her and our breaths fall into rhythm.

I can close things down.

The cinema over the street. Lights off. The library. The all-night kebab shop. Doors shut.

I close my eyes.

And all the lights in the city go out.