The dead of the night

"Why do you stay up so late?" he asked. She thought about trying to explain it to him, but in 20 years that had never worked, so she tilted her face up to his and he kissed her mouth. "I'll be up in a while" she said. He went to bed, and she waited for the night to settle around her like the dust of dreams. In the deepening stillness, she let the darkness of her soul open out, and she began to write.