Every night at 3:07 Warsaw holds its breath. At least for me. The world blurs into a photograph of a long time: raindrops hang in the air like glass beads, the feathers of pigeons freeze in a half flutter, even the fog on the Vistula becomes something to go around like a sculpture. I then have 89 heartbeats before everything returns to its normal ticking. I've learnt to exploit these brief gaps like someone taking the sultanas out of a cake - seemingly nothing much, but enough to change the flavour. I'll move an improperly parked scooter so the ambulance can pass. I'll slip a lost monthly ticket into the crevice of a bench where the owner cries into the phone every night. I sort out the little things that no one asked for, but which, tinkered with at the right moment, can untangle someone else's day. That evening I was returning from work, smelling of coffee and rain. Powiśle was sticky from the July heat, and the neon sign above the 'Quick Grain' was suffocating in amber flashes. At the gate on Rozbrat Street, a cat with eyes like spilled ink watched me with the dignity of a doorman. No sign announced that this would be an exception. And yet I felt as if someone was turning an invisible bolt in the air. 3:06 The movement of the street like a purr under the skin. The drops under the edge of the awning were beginning to separate, ready to jump. I reach for my watch, although I don't need to. My body knows on its own. As 3:07 approaches, the skin on my wrists tingles and the air becomes thicker, like being in a lift between floors. 3:07. The world has collapsed into a silence so pure it could be ripped like an mp3. The movement of the street came to a standstill. The sound of drops disintegrated into nothing. I took a step. A second. My soles clung to the wet cobblestones. I skipped over the raspberry tail of signalling, running down like a ribbon from the black box of the sky. I always have to calm my breathing at the start, adjust my rhythm, count: one, two, three... ninety, although I still end up at eighty-nine. The routine is like an anchor. I should have turned for home straight away. But a neon sign beeped on my left - a sound like a rumpus. In lingering without moving, nothing should squeak. I stopped. The neon blinked. And again. It was alive. It wasn't the neon. It was something underneath. A metallic groan, as if someone was talking to the bridge. I took up a run towards the boulevards, passing the statuesque silhouettes of runners who had never touched the ground. My ears were open like windows. Usually I could only hear my own footsteps and heartbeat. This time they were joined by other footsteps, quick, sure, hitting the floor of the underground passage. I froze. Someone else was moving. A boy came down the stairs as if he had never stopped walking. He had wet hair from which dripped drops frozen in the air and yet falling - reason had no words for it. Around his neck were headphones, on his shoulder a tool bag against which every screw in the area must have felt awe. The stranger raised his eyes and saw me; his eyes were serene but alert, like those of someone who has learned to listen to things no one else can hear. - 'You can do that too,' he said without whispering, because here a whisper would have sounded like a shout anyway. - Wh-what? - It's been years since anyone surprised me at 3:07 a.m. No one but me should have batted even an eyelash. - To move when the world pauses. - He smiled briefly. - I am Iwo. I thought I was the only one. For one second I was angry; for the next I felt a relief so great it hurt. My 89 heartbeats were always lonely. And now there stood before me someone who knows this kind of silence inside out. - Lena - I said. - Since when...? - Since thirty-three nights. Exactly. Before that, everything was ordinary. Until one time my watch stopped serving me, because time no longer concerned me. - He pointed with his chin in the direction of Wisłostrada. - Come on. If we only have a moment, I prefer not to waste it. I should have asked where. I should not have walked with a stranger into a night-time Warsaw that pretended to be a photographic set. Yet his footsteps had something magnetic about them, and my curious heart was already running ahead. We moved through the tunnel under the bridge. From beneath the steps, the Warsaw concrete spoke to us with a chill, as if breathing through the cracks. The air smelled of electricity and the river. - Can you hear it? - Asked Iwo, kneeling by the ventilation grille. I put my hand to the metal. The ribs of the grille were like strings. A high, thin tone sounded in my head, like a bow being dragged over the edge of a glass. It wasn't mine. It didn't belong to any man. The pipes spoke. Someone at the very bottom of the city was humming under his breath. - Last night it was louder," Iwo added. - 'As if the whole structure of the bridge was trying to say no. Today... it's lower. As if it was getting ready. - For what? Iwo took a long look at me, as if weighing up whether it was worth pulling out all the cards straight away. - Whenever 3:07 ends, everything goes back to its usual course. But three nights ago, for a split second, the indicators went backwards. I saw it in the tram cab. The clock trembled. I heard the rails sigh, as if they were suddenly relieved. And this is not normal. - He stood up. - Come on, I'll show you something. We walked along the boulevards, where the restaurant's glass windows stopped the movement of waiters' hands and the glare of glasses in their interiors. Behind the glass you could see a couple in a half-smile, who were surely about to argue over dessert, but were now taking forever to choose their forks. The river looked like a granite ribbon pierced by silvery lamp notches. Above us, the sky sounded quiet; somewhere far away in the midst of the purple, a storm was looking out. Iwo led me to a small metal door beneath the observation deck, where no one tends to look, as it is too often draughty and sad. He put his hands to the lock and I saw the muscles of his forearms twitch slightly, like someone listening to the singing of the deep. The lock clicked. We opened the door to a corridor that knew more rat footsteps than people. - Are you talking to the locks? - I couldn't help myself. - They are talking to me. - He shrugged his shoulders. - Metal remembers touch. All you have to do is ask it well. We walked through the crisp air that had the taste of copper. Occasionally I heard a quiet clink, as if someone had dropped a spoon in the darkness. The phone light was useless - nothing was flowing except us anyway. At the end of the corridor was a small hall, with a row of electrical boxes that usually purr like dormant cats. Now they were quite silent. And in the middle - I can't describe it simply - there was a thin scar hanging in the air. I could see it, although it had no contours. It was like a crack in the glass, through which the image outside the window shifted a little, as if someone had slightly twisted reality. She resembled a line of light under the door. As I approached, I could feel my skin tingling and the aftertaste of ozone, as if I had been struck by lightning in a distant land. - It was here. - Iwo's voice was different from when he joked at the stole. Too calm. - Since when is it here? - I asked in a whisper that didn't matter anyway in that halting moment. - I noticed three nights ago. At first it was just a twitch. Today... - He pointed with his hand. - See how it distorts the light. The scar seemed to grow and diminish like a breath. Through it, Iwo's eyelashes looked darker and the edges of his chest as if arched. Suddenly I felt my 89 heartbeats start to run out. That internal metronome I have under my ribs sped up. Usually at this point I go out in the open so no one can see me when the time returns to normal. Yet I couldn't move. - What happens when 3:07 is up? - I asked. - If it's something... if it's behaving differently from everything? Iwo took a step back. He looked ready to run. To do anything. - I'd rather know this sooner than later,' he muttered. - Listen. In a minute... He didn't have time to finish. We felt it at the same time: inside me it fluttered like a pigeon locked in a sack. The world did not return to its usual course. Instead, the watch on my wrist, which always stopped at this time, began to go back a second. And another. And another. The pointer didn't melt, it didn't jump - it flowed backwards softly, like a river that has suddenly changed its mind. The metal around us responded first with a quiet groan and then with a long, low tone. The scar in the air split open, as if someone from inside was trying to slip their fingers into the crack. A light seeped out of the centre, which was... dark. Not black, but the kind of light that other lights immediately fade after, as if ashamed. - 'Lena,' said Iwo, this time really in a whisper. - Someone is coming. I heard footsteps. Not ours. Soft, a little uneven, as if one foot was cutting a slightly longer arc. The footsteps bounced off the concrete in a rhythm I can't name, but which I knew from long ago - from my childhood, from the corridor in the block of flats, where the board second from the end creaked under the carpet. I remembered this rhythm like the taste of tap water after a storm. I was assaulted by a memory so total that I felt like laughing and crying at the same time. Footsteps stopped just behind us. The scar pulsed, the watch retreated faster and faster, and the walls seemed to listen. The air thickened to its limits, as if the corridor had become a straw through which someone is trying to draw the sea. - 'Lenka,' spoke a voice I should never have heard again. It spoke my name as only one person in the world spoke it. I didn't dare turn around. The scarred voice murmured. - How many more strokes do you have? - asked Iwo quietly. I didn't have time to count because the world just ahead cracked wider, and the outlines of someone's hand began to emerge from the dim light, outstretched as if to greet me.