Late Night Coding

“3 AM. The screen is the only light in the apartment. You've been stuck for four hours and then something shifts. Not a eureka — more like a lock turning. You see the shape of it. Your fingers know before your brain does. The code runs. The tests pass. The terminal fills with green. You sit back and there's nobody to tell. The coffee is cold. The apartment hums — fridge, fans, the particular silence of a building full of sleeping people. You close the laptop and the dark rushes in and you're smiling at nothing. Tomorrow you won't remember the solution. You'll remember this.”