I had been seriously down for too long a time before I came here, and sure enough, this damn city has managed to turn my mood around completely. Through a friend's friend I met a girl, a very promising girl, and hey, don't ask me how I did it, but she is now walking by my side, along the deserted streets of nocturnal Paris. Funny thing. One never thinks of the streets of Paris in a state of calm, but at 4.30 in the morning they are, whispering quiet.

During the earlier encounters, brief looks had been exchanged, or at least something that could be interpreted as looks, also maybe as random eyes crossing. We both knew we would be leaving this city soon, as it turns out now in four and a half hours for me, and six and a half for her. And during these earlier exchanges, we both rationally looked away from the evident, knowing that nothing could ever come to any good. It seems though our eyes are now making up for time lost.

We've walked a few blocks, and the conversation has skydived from uncertain questions why I hadn't said anything before, and why she hadn't been more explicit, to the letting go of all reserve, an electrifying frankness. We talk, walk in silence for a while, uneasily allow for hands to be taken, watch a cat wonder at our presence, sit ourselves down on a bench opposite each other and I drown, drown, drown in her eyes, her soft black eyes.

We speak of our films, our songs, our dreams, whilst our hands and feet get colder. I lend her my sweater, rub blood back into her feet, and our eyes warm each others hearts. And of what we want of life, our projects for the near future, her trip back to X and my trip back to Y, two directions not even on the same scale. How she has always wanted to live in Paris, how I, after struggling to survive for five years, had left the city in anger and have come back to find it more like home than any other place in the world, loves lost, and what might be.

When cold and sleep are getting the better of us, we get up again and walk in silence, content, unsteady, unsure as where to go from here, and, inevitably, we arrive at her front door. So she gives me back my sweater, our eyes have to let go, only for an instant, but long enough for the spell to be broken. Her arms fall around my body as none have done since, I can feel her breathing, her heart against mine, her breath caressing my lips. I can't, she says, not like this, not when knowing we are parting in opposite directions in a couple of hours, and she turns away, closes the door behind her.

When walking to my bed, a thousand thoughts surf on a tune in my head. “It's the best thing that you've ever had; the best thing you've had has gone away.” Her favorite song, her biggest fear put into music. “High and dry”.


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