First Sight

I have very little recollection of my journey here.

Money changed hands; I know that much.

There were tickets of numerous sorts, paper, plastic, a small metal ring (it's edges sharp enough that I cut my fingers, reaching for it in my pocket, and when I had handed it, its gleaming surface smeared with my blood, to the conductor she'd smiled, and passed it back quickly, happens a lot, love, she'd said). And there were horrible dashings from one terminal to another, punctuated by long hours, even days of waiting. I think.



But that is all, that I retain, of the journey. My reasons for coming are even hazier. Indeed I have no real idea at all. You'll hear that a lot, which is one nature of this metropolis. It is the city of seeping hesitations, sweeping gestures, it is the grand melting pot of lies.

But that is true of us all. Why are you here? Why did you ever leave the womb, when all there is are tombish certainties and taxes?


I have very little recollection of my journey here. But I do remember my first sight of the city. A hastily drawn sketch, handed to me, in a bus stop, in a small country town that was obviously already fatally bleeding towards the city as all such small country towns do. That sketch was my first sight of her, and I recognised her, even though I hadn't seen the city before, and the drawing was but a fragment of it. I recognised her as I would my own face, my lovely Perjure.