Waking up 5:25 am Saturday morning to a party above me

I had set my alarm for 7:30, but the singing party above me decided that was not important

I knew my apartment walls were thin. I expected any sort of party noises to come through the walls like a sonic Kool-Aid Man breaking my sleep apart. I didn’t expect the noises I got from the ceiling.

Before the song, there is talking, nothing I haven’t heard before. That’s how I know it’s a party and not a choir rehearsal.

They sing for twenty minutes, the same melody again and again. They’re singing something that sounds like Battle Hymn of the Republic, so they might be history majors because I can’t imagine anyone else saying,

“Hey, let’s have a party and stay up until past 5:25 am and sing Battle Hymn of the Republic.” Who else would do that?

After the singing, it must be the perfect time in the morning to fall immediately to sleep as if hypnotized because there is no sound above me.

Perhaps the song was the end of the party, and everyone in the room finds some cushion to lose time on.

Perhaps some conversations linger and I just don’t hear them.

After the song, I think about how both of us celebrate the sunrise and neither of us meant to this morning. But they went to sleep on purpose and I woke up by accident.

I’m up too early and they’re up too late and we won’t know each other.

I hope they cook lots of scrambled eggs later today before they decide it’s time to go back home, so they can take their time waking up with some food.

I don’t know if they sang just so nobody was alone tonight,

if they sang just to know they had the time,

if they sang because they wanted to remember their own voices. I’ll never know for sure.

I didn’t get up and ask them. I just fell back asleep.