On a night the heat won't let you sleep

The night has grown deep, but the air in the room is still holding onto the day's heat. The fan turns its head all the way to the left, then swings back to the right, and the breeze that comes back is lukewarm. I'm standing by the window with a glass of water just out of the fridge in my hand. Leave the window half open and the sound of the city drifts in, thin: the hum of some building's outdoor unit, a single late motorbike, and, in the gaps between them, my own breathing, somehow clearer for it.

A tropical night is a strange kind of time. The body is worn out but sleep won't come; you don't want to do anything, yet you keep wanting to hear something. The music you played in the daylight doesn't quite fit this hour — too bright, too fast, trying to say too many things at once. What suits a night like this is a song that doesn't vanish when you lower the volume, a voice that isn't a weight even when it stays close.

On nights like these, I put on old songs again. The ones that never moved from their place while a few trends came and went. There's a moment when the season I first heard them in slips quietly over the season I'm in now. It doesn't matter if I don't sing along. That there's one voice in the room — on some nights, that's enough.

I hang one slow song in the air and just stand by the window until the water turns lukewarm. If sleep comes, I sleep; if it doesn't, I let it not come. This hour isn't something to grit your teeth through but somewhere to linger a while — the song says it for me. If I were to pick one song to set by your window tonight, this is the one I'd want to hand you: 'Through the Night'.