We have started the New Year with a bang. Explosive revelations, no minor epiphanies. Realizations that slap us naked in 20º weather, with snow raining down on us, making my long hair crunchy and brittle. Making my face sting with the impact of a life finally worth living. Making my will known, imposing myself onto myself. Devouring and regurgitating a lifetime of unplanned failures and half-life sabotages, purging and beginning again. Salvaging the wreckage and creating worth from worthlessness. Living, not hiding. Living, not existing by default. Terrifying. Almost as shocking to the system as falling in love for the first time.

I am nervous about writing with an audience. Nervous enough to knock off the lid of the sugar jar when he comes into the room to give me a kiss.

We leave the apartment because we need to get out. Because we want to breathe freely and feel the cold saturating our bodies. We hold hands and say nothing. We find that the cabin fever follows us, that we carry our claustrophobia with us, in our pocket and purse, and fill the night air of Manhattan with it. We take up all the space with our awkward questions. At least, I do; he claims otherwise.

The clouds are frozen stiff in the sky (indigo) as we walk down Bleecker Street (gray). The sky never gets to be dark here because of perpetual light pollution, an infection of artificial brightness. We are surrounded by varying degrees of potential violence and (im)possible euphoria. Everything is (im)possible for us.

As we walk, my head itches. I let go of his hand to scratch it. He talks and I listen. I talk and his eyes wander, the scenes framed by invisible lenses. We both talk and neither of us listens.

Him: I think we might want to grab an early…

Me: I was thinking…

Him: dinner if we want to catch an…

Me: that when we speak to…

Him: early movie…

Me: each other, we sound like a David Mamet…

Him: or a show…

Me: play, or a Hal Hartley…

Him: or a play.

Me: movie.

Him: Okay, yeah, we can go see a movie.

FADE TO BLACK