The Walk

Him and I are winding through unmarked streets and dead ends. We are in the west end of the city, quiet neighbours and silent suffering, commenting on the shabbiness of houses we pass, fresh road kill, and deriving theories on the affluence of the neighbourhood. And I explain to him my immense dislike for small talk. Talk that is small; disconnected, weathered tidbits of meaning, mumbled out of perverse politeness.

And we come upon a playground void of the energy children’s ghosts exude when caught in moments of happy unawareness. And how I wish that I could fall into the same forgetful disarray. But I cannot, and instead I am aware of his every move, the pronunciation of every word.

We wind, re-wind the streets in vague attempts to find our way back to the main road, asking our feet and other limbs for directions. Speaking of nothing, everything. And suddenly I can’t walk on for the realization that there is nothing in the centre of my words save a withered heart and an elderly, limping soul.

I sit in the middle of road, put my head in my hands, and slip into a coma of simplicity.