dorian,

we be-

came,

ultimately, prisoners of pleasure,

our desires nourished by the tick of clocks,

our habits defined by repetition:

acts of selfish and selfless abandon

we delighted our-

selves with many things:

the blind dark,

the risk of a library corner at midnight,

a bowl of cereal in the morning,

slivers of cold mango at noon,

going home to each other's strange and familiar skins at dusk

we be-

came content with our beauty, our youth

the envy of the old and regretful

the jealousy of the young but plain

we be-

came aware that we are wise beyond our years,

but at the moment, we can be

both happy and lonely,

alone and together.

we fell

in love.

memory, persistence

It is a hot day, the afternoon heat like a solid presence in the air that choked the senses, that pressed itself against the cold metal of the car. He is driving back to his office from a meeting somewhere else, his thoughts still fresh with new tasks and newer ideas. He is alone, save for a lonely voice singing on the radio.

So he is surprised when he sees her suddenly among the people on the sidewalks waiting for the bus. He could not be mistaken. The strange black hair that rippled almost violet in the sun, the frail white hand shielding her almond eyes from the angry glare of the noontime sky. Later, he would try in vain to remember if she was real. Or if she were only a vision, how a small part of his past could insist so suddenly on a present ripe with the future.

He stops the car and gets out to look for her among the crowd of pedestrians and hawkers and beggars. Is she wearing a yellow dress? He thinks he saw briefly a polished skin of a shoulder that her wayward hair tried to conceal in vain. He swims through the sea of people, in the direction of this glimpse of her, which disappears as soon as he takes a step forward. Shall he call out her name? Would she stop in her tracks and turn her head towards his voice. She would not.

He feels foolish suddenly at his assumption that she would want to see him again, that she would recognize him after all these years. Yet he could not stop from searching among faces for that singular blank look that hid a systematic history of emotions. He is someone who can pursue something, or someone, merely for the sake of knowing, even if there is really nothing, only a mistake or an empty promise.