Dirt and soul (Bits of time).

It's a black winter night. I am nineteen. I am walking down a street glassed with ice and fringed in show. A tired smile plays at my lips as the air, frosty, licks at my exposed skin. Hands slip into rough wool coat pockets, and my steps quicken. The house on the corner is afire with light and sound. I move inside; voices twine all around me. Someone thrusts a glass of red wine between my fingers. I am grateful for it. I slither out of coat...boots...scarf...mittens and say an array of hellos. An unexpected shyness blossoms through my veins. There are one or three familiar faces, but more than most of the house strewn with bodies are those unknown to me. I like this, for some strange and hazy reason. It makes me feel safe; anonymous. My real reason for coming here tonight was to let myself breathe; peel myself from textbooks. Was it a foolish idea? Now I am standing here, body thawing out, feeling like an awkward baby colt on wobbly legs. I am netted within a web of strangers, and now what? And so I drink, quickly and so I will feel smoother. It's latelate December; skinny days before Christmas. There is a tree in the corner, nearby to where I find myself standing. Its smell is raw and refreshing, and vaguely intoxicating. There are candles as well; a ridiculous spread. The collection flung across the living room windowsill is interesting; religious paraphernalia. Fire licks against glass-streaked images of the Virgin Mary, her arms full of the Christ child; Jesus draped over the Cross; a rain of angels. I can't tell if they are meant to be taken seriously or in jest, but regardless, they reel my eyes in towards them. They fuel a memory; Catholic church service as a child. I fall onto my own planet of thought for a heartbeat, and the next thing I know a girl in a man's tattered dress shirt and a cigarette at her lips stumbles into me. I'm in the way. I apologize; melt to the other side of the room.

I'm curled in the corner of a couch, cool black leather. My friend who the house belongs to wanders over, an open bottle of red slung loosely in his left hand. He sits with me awhile, refills my glass to the brim, and we talk about my midterms, the hecticness of the season, the new girl he is dating. After a time he is gone; a tidal wave of life. I am alone again, but not really lonely. By this point I am relaxed; even; content to observe the swirling scene around me.

In the midst of watching a girl exhibit her newborn glittering engagement ring to a knot of people--"Hey, can I sit with you?" I flick my eyes towards the voice; so near although soft. You are there, and you are beautiful. You are a complete stranger to me. You are drinking something in a low, clear glass with ice. Gin, maybe?

I discover that Winnipeg is a very new city to you; you've barely grazed the surface of it yet. We talk about cafes, I tell you my favourites. We talk about dreaming at night, and whether we think it has any sort of meaning at all. Both of us think it does, but still, we agree, it's mysterious. We talk about old music and how the best sorts of days are the grayest ones and how walking alone at night down an empty street can feel so exhilerating. We talk about the obvious; how we aren't organically at ease within a crowd, and how we are happier and more fulfilled by a longer, intimate conversation than frantic snatches of talk with person after person.

I feel like I was made for this conversation; it has been years in the making. It fits flawlessly. I feel like there are a thousand things I want to say and ask you and share and have flow between us. I like your voice, and the words you choose, and the thought you visibly put into them. In a strange sense, in the edges of my mind, I am frightened of losing you...to another person passing by; to menial small talk; to the ocean of people. I can tell you want to hang on to me too; keep me here with yourself. It is a chemical reaction, and we share a magic not so subtle.

We talk for hours. The party yawns; quiets; sighs and deflates like a creature settling down for sleep. We are virtually alone now. The remaining few people crawling over the proximity of the house draw together as if magnetically; they draw towards us. Fuck. Neither of us want this. Yet we must embrace it, and gracefully. Or else what would that look like to the others around? It changes, once we're not alone any longer, inhabiting our own separate universe. All seems back to normal again, yet we are altered, the both of us. I realize my eyes are gritty with weariness, and the hour is immeasurably late. I've an exam to slash through in the morning, and already I'll be falling into bed dangerously close to sunrise.

The last thing I want to do is leave you, though. Our eyes speak volumes--
Stay here with me.
No...no, I can't. I shouldn't.
I know...we only just met...but please stay. Or leave, leave with me.
I...I want to. More than anything I want to. Its just that...
What? What is it? I'm scared too.
No, its not that. It's just that I need sleep, it seems so irrelevant I know, but...
Yeah. I know. Of course, it makes sense. I just couldn't help but...
I know. Me too. I want...
Me too.
Yeah.
Yeah...

Our goodbye is quick; to prolongue it would complicate. I thank my friend for having me. I say goodbye to lingering partiers one, two, three, six. You I leave for the end. Our eyes flash energy; daring us to let them speak again. But no, it's later than late and beyond time for me to go. You walk me to the door; a few others follow, innocently enough, thrashing around for footwear. Laughter falls all around us, but as far as either of us is concerned, none of it exists. We say nothing more; exchange no information; make no plan to see one another. And I'm glad. It seems that it would somehow strip this night of its naked perfection. And so I go; I turn and I walk out the door and into the dark. All I know is that I feel alive.

**

Indian summer; we sit against the river. My feet are bare. You lay on your back, eyes closed, soaking in the unexpeted warmth. We have tea, gray vanilla. The trees are skeletal, bare but for a few final bronzed leaves that still cling, defying the oncoming winter. You stretch over onto your side, and reach down to trail a finger over the skin of my foot nearest to you. It makes me shiver, but in the best sort of way. You ease your body up to sitting; pull me into yourself; lay your lips against my forehead. Its my sort-of favourite place to be kissed; you know it. My laughter is soft, and appreciative.

We talk about love. I have a slender amount to say; you have far too much. Our experiences are glacially opposite. But its okay. There is nothing we can change about that, and so we offer what we have to one another with an almost raw innocence. Afternoon light bleeds a shade less golden by degrees; somehow the hours have whittled themselves away and now its dusky dark. We lay there, backs pressing into the dock's dishevled wood, tracing the lines of one another's bodies. Eventually, we fall asleep.