Snow drifts lazily to the ground outside, lit sodium orange in the glare of streetlights and the lit-up logo of the self-storage place across the dual carriageway.  It settles briefly, knowing all too well that the breeze off the ocean will melt it away before morning.

Somewhere a radio is playing; frequency-modulated static over the sleepy drawl of a late-night DJ and the songs of decades long gone.  Nothing stirs in the house, just me and the tap-tap-tap of fingers on keys.

It is a moment outside time in a place adrift from the world.

But tomorrow the streets will be clear and the dance will begin again, leaving only the trickles of snow that linger in shadows and the endless radio haze.