the bell was about to ring. we both disdained curfews. just then, and forever. i was looking into old-red brick, fading and burning under moonlight, walls and walls and walls, my fingers grazing her wrist. you , i said. she stood up and faced me. - the warden's calling my name, can you hear?

**

the usual hustle-bustle and horn-blares and layers of sound dissolving into smog. there was a lump inside my throat. a wordless hour. a long walk. i dropped the last cigarette, half-finished. she turned around and faced me. - i will go now - okay. there is fury beneath her smile. she waits for a moment. - go.

**

dirty-jeans and ash-smears. a conversation on anna karenina and the sexiest way to hold a cigarette. the first conversation. her accent is not american, but american-english. as the joke goes. daughter of a diplomat, multi-country hopper, imperfectly polylingual. she's pretty and i wonder what she is thinking. i stop discoursing on peasant-prototypes (who's bored?) and look at my cellphone-clock. eight fifteen. - it's been five hours - yes, um, listen, you want to go somewhere tomorrow? - i will be a little busy, not tomorrow, sometime later? - yeah, sure - and i have to go now - yeah, okay, and.. - i will bump into you soon enough - yeah, okay, and.. - see you, then - yeah, okay, and..i won't ask for your number. - what? - i won't ask for your number - ..and i won't ask for yours?

**

sleep-deprived and sweaty, i open a cigarette-pack and ask her, you like science fiction? her beauty hits me sharply. she is my best friend's girlfriend. our knees are touching, my fingers brush her thighs as i turn towards her. she thinks it is accidental. what else can she think? not friendly, no. images swirl inside my head, possibilities bound by the promise of friendship. nothing is implicit. she roars, she sneers, she is alternately sarcastic and goofy. no, i think, not really.

**

aisle seat, sure, but my legs seem to grow inside an airplane. i rise to let her pass, she mutters a thank you. the next two hours have to be passed anticipating a meaningful glance or a tangible gesture or a word, but since nothing will happen, i will soberly imagine a realistic hello-goodbye story, with zero improbable twists. the story begins from the second glance.

**

sharpening the pencil and drawing the most preposterous face in the history (and geography) of child-art. adding a little hair and surrounding the half-dancing body with a name. smelling the paper and waiting for the real body (with face and hair) to emerge from the drawing. afterthought: adding a love-poem, with violets are blue serving as the penultimate line. hiding it inside a random notebook, along with a two-out-of-ten and red ink screaming poor performance. after a few minutes: taking out the piece of paper and kissing it embarrassedly and getting caught by mother and crying like a baby and feeling the injustice of the world and tearing the paper into two and crying still and throwing it into the dustbin and running away to recuperate.

**

looking at the moon and smoking a joint and looking at the moon. looking down and feeling giddy. hand on shoulder. - this way.