a fine philosophical distinction

HERS:
it's the neighborhood. charming and new. she slides barefoot toes over the grit of concrete, feet propped on the porch railing while she smokes.

the people across the street smoke, too. their green house looks sad from the west, sunlight in the windows teary. the children have been taken away again. tonight it's too dark to see the woman sitting on her porch, but the burning tip of her cigarette gives her away. movement is sensed more than seen, and suddenly the cigarette stubbed out on the side of the porch is raining sparks from a cupped hand, the only visible thing for blocks.

she's lived here for two months now and this is what she notices: the women across the street holding desperately to their children while they screw up again and again, and the man who walks.

red pants and white sneakers. over time, she will see his method of audio delivery evolve. boombox, walkman, discman, mp3. every day he hurries past at the same time, she sitting on her porch examining her red toenails and sipping whiskey and sprite from a white coffee cup. it has to be the neighborhood; these people are part of its charm.

today when he walks by, he looks up. hurried as usual, like the only thing that matters is his progress southward and the beat of his blood against the beat of a drum somewhere in his head. but he catches her eye and makes no physical form of acknowledgement.

this one she is not scared of. the streets are full of the intransigent, the downtrodden, the wronged - it is a neighborhood on the verge, this place she ended up. the young families and the artists are beginning to encroach upon the junkies and the gangs.

this man is not one of those who makes her wish the roommate were home more often; his broad bald harshness a comfort in the late hours of the night when the sirens come through and she is not used to living in this place.

eventually he will begin to acknowledge her. he'll walk by and there will be the slightest ghost of a smile. of a nod. maybe she imagines it, but she prefers not. i'm a safe one too, she thinks. we've got the street camaraderie.

he'll keep walking even after she's gone and moved on; she sees him from time to time on the other side of town but he makes no motion of remembering her. she must look different against cement block than red brick.

she'll always wonder where he is going.



HIS:
the day turned out dreary and dry, a break from the rain a relief to his knees, his back.

one foot in front of the other. one foot in front of the other.

he doesn't keep track of how long he's been walking, he doesn't like to think about it. with that comes a mess of anniversaries and remembrances that are too cumbersome to embrace. he knows how old he is, but allows himself the luxury of ignorance.

this way, he can think, i smelled her hair yesterday. i patted fingers across her soft pink cheek yesterday. fifteen years and he knows the smell of love's baby soft like he was wearing it himself.

one foot in front of the other. one foot in front of the other.

he won't be busy, he can't be busy. so he walks. the neighborhood is friendlier at some times than others; in the heat of summer he considers buying a knife.

which would indicate that he were mortal. which could indicate that he needed to care about anything more than just walking. it could remind him that it has not been less than a day since he sat in her lap and played with her necklace, listened as she talked on the phone to a bearded man who made her giggle.

so he turns up the volume and adjusts the headphones, resolutely deciding that it hasn't yet reached a point where he'll be shot for walking. he's not going to get jumped for his dirty white sneakers.

one foot in front of the other. one foot in front of the other.

every step is backwards. a step towards yesterday when she wore an orange blouse and curled her bangs upward, clipped blue stones onto her ears and smiled at him in the mirror.

tomorrow can't exist, because tomorrow has the world and the blue water. fifteen years ago, it didn't really mean anything that she was swallowed by that wave. he laughed at the big sister goofing in her red bikini for him. his insteps punish the sidewalks for taking her away, he breathes steady steady up and down each street.

at some point, he'll come home and she'll be waiting. there is nothing in this world but his throat raw with breathing and tiny hope dancing with delusion.