HENRYALLAN

"I thought you wouldn't come" Her voice has a playful edge, inviting me to slip on my words, undoubtedly searching me for fissures and treasures. Her eyes were startlingly bright and wild, catching the street lights, while my own quickly searched for an easier resting place among the intricate stone-work that sheltered designer storefronts. Ionic columns, which rose suddenly from garish steel, were met by curling stone flora placed to frame black glass windows. She had set the pace to what I termed in the moment as 'gazelle like' but which I would later term as 'irritable at best' and we made our way to the park. I leaned over the stone wall to see a building hidden behind dark leaves. "I hate the zoo" she said "let's go further north." I stood for a moment, considering if this was an in-the-moment manufactured zoo hatred and then, turning, realized that she had begun to walk again. I ran to catch up. We entered the park unimpeded. The gradation from corner stores and overturned trash receptacles to the regal expanse of dark greenery.

Her beautiful lips moved like hummingbird wings and her hair glowed in the moonlight.

"Do you believe in marriage" It was phrased as a question but her voice lacked the proper inflections. Our pace had slowed considerably and we floated around each other, no longer moored by linear streets. Drifting in and out of the lamplight. Our rubber souls quiet on the stone hexagons. I had paused, perhaps for a moment too long, and she turned away to in her words, 'watch the oaks grow.'

"No one has ever asked me that," I said, moving, trying try to meet her eyes. But she turned again, unaware of my gaze. Her steps played with the stones, the cuff of her white trousers kissed the fence that ran the length of the path. I pulled at my shirt, sticky wet cotton separating from my back. In the darkness, where the lamps had died - although, most likely they were just asleep - the park felt terribly vast and my mind

wandered, wondering where the night was going and about how I might lose myself in the blackness. The feeling was familiar, a casual despondence, lacking the concern (agency?) to motivate action or inaction, emerging from irrational, unmapped territories between mind and heart. She played with the leather strap of her bag. I moved my mouth slowly and she drifted in the moonlight, lazily dancing out of reach.

As the trees grew denser, the park darker, her eyes less blinding as they reflected back darker greens - I found myself searching them more as she spoke - her words found their way, winding and sweeping. She was intelligent, of course and I listened intently, following each supposition with a query, and each conclusion with a new thread. At times I picked a turn, most times she chose, we rambled into the night guided by discussions of poetry and morality.