That moment when the town wakes up. The opening drumbeat from a lone pair of feet on the pavement. An eyeblink in the grey morning light, as pupils used to darkness contract to pinpoints, then flare again. It’s 5am on a weekday morning, dancing with the last night’s chip-wrap and carrier bags on the back street breeze.

It’s the rumble of the train, a rail-bound titan moving down the hidden conduits of the metropolis, on secret paths known only to the initiate, the brotherhood of engineers and trackmen. A topography that intersects with our own only at intervals, at the places where the walls between one geography and another fray and grow thin.

It’s the tone of the radio alarm, a signal web of information spreading from broadcast tower flashpoints across the urban sprawl, bringing us to conciousness with a dance of information amid the dead-air static. A synchronisation of reason in our minds to begin the day.

It’s the pin-and-tumbler rattle of the key in the lock as we leave our residences behind, and step out into the larger world. As we put away our private selves for another day, and strap on our day-faces, like a ritual for some forgotten sun god.

It’s the moment where the world comes on.