Since he was a young boy, he had cherished one thing above all others.
His sleep.
While other children fought bedtime, he welcomed it. Long before the chickens returned to their henhouse, he would already be under his blanket, eyes closed, at peace with the world. Sunset was his limit, and he kept to it without apology.
Everyone thought he was strange. Boys his age begged for extra time to play or watch television, stretching the evening as far as it would go. Not him. He understood something they did not yet know how to feel: that with every sunset came a quiet promise. Another dawn, only a few hours away, waiting with fresh light and everything still possible.
Before sunrise, he would already be awake and full of a calm energy that the rest of the house had not yet found. The world around him still slept, unaware of what was happening outside. From the balcony, his morning castle, he would watch the day begin. Birds moving between branches, chasing invisible things through the air. The sky shifting slowly from deep blue to pale gold, as though someone were turning up a lamp from somewhere far away. And below, the distant sound of a street cleaner's broom against the pavement, constant and unhurried.
Hours later came the first sound from inside the house. The soft whistle of the kettle. His mother was up, preparing to send everyone into their separate worlds. He loved that sound. It meant the day had officially and properly begun.
He missed things over the years. Family gatherings that ran late, parties, films, all the events his friends recounted the next morning with the easy pleasure of people who had stayed until the end. He never regretted any of it. Sleep was sacred to him, a ritual he would not trade for company or convenience.
Decades passed. Fifty years later, the little boy was still there, living inside an older man's body. Still fading early. Still rising before dawn. Friends joked about his habits with the affectionate mockery of people who secretly wished they shared them. While they rushed through mornings half awake and behind schedule, he moved through his days in rhythm with something older and steadier than any alarm clock.
They say early birds get the worm.
He smiled quietly when he heard that.
Early risers, he thought, get everything.