Their fingers touched briefly like two flowers brought together by the wind. The distance was bridged if only for a few seconds. She held her head against the window and slowly broke contact. He watched as she closed her eyes. He wanted to say many things but it was not the moment for dredging up the past. The lights from beyond shone through her hair like little diamonds. In a few hours the bus would stop and the present would catch up with them again. Words would slip out of their grasp and leave a heavy but familiar silence behind. A silence whose heat had already evaporated all the warmth between them. The roar of the engine mixed with the turmoil in his heart. He leaned against the head rest and closed his eyes.

—–

Beneath me the earth moves in waves. The ground beneath seems to dissolve into layers and each such layer flows inwards to a point in front of me. The wind rushes through the leaves far above me.

In the distance peacocks cry out for the clouds to stop and rain.

I pass through the trees and shrubs, unseen and silent. Around me things slither and slide away into the undergrowth.

The world is in motion.

—–

There are people whispering around me. Music wafts over their heads, forming an interesting counterpoint to their sonic uniformity. I wonder. I wonder.

Thoughts from the past flit through my head, shapeless drifters caught under the magnifying glass of nostalgia. A face there, a curve of a smile here, a random word there, a touch of warm skin on a cold night here-a mental slideshow of fleeting moments.

—–

The alcohol took complete control of him. He talked non-stop to fill the gaps between us. He forgot details but he remembered the roads. Every turn evoked a different memory. Under the uniform glow of neon he relived all the little adventures that made up his life.

We wanted food and he claimed to know all the spots that would still be open at 4 am. We rushed through deserted roads that increased our hunger and loneliness. The promise of early morning idlies and thoughts of the best bread-omlet in town vanished along with his hopeful words. All the roads led nowhere and everywhere at once into worlds we would never see or cross again.

—–

I came too close to the coldness around. A new hole was punched through soft flesh and everything bled out. The will to love and live. The random laughter that erases lines. No one can understand the loneliness of unfulfilled desire.