Deader Than Four O’Clock

I don’t remember exactly how or where, but when I was writing the short story “All Alone” (now part of the anthology Shotgun Honey Reloaded: Both Barrels Vol. 2), I stumbled across the phrase “deader than four o’clock.”

It’s a great phrase, instantly evocative, so of course I used it in the story — one character looks at another and pronounces him “deader than four o’clock.”

At the time, I was completely unaware of the March 2007 TED Talk by the poet Rives on the topic of 4 a.m. and its place i...