She's A Sad Tomato

I remember a time, several years ago now, unbelievably, when MMS and I spent the earlier part of a night roaming about the narrow city and its even narrower streets on our bikes, hopping off now and then to pop inside a bar for a chilled beer, the satisfying sinking of a few eight balls, and the pleasant company of strangers that we had grown so accustomed to in that time. That night, though, we quickly grew bored of the unchanging conversations with our random encounters, so we again straddled our bikes and sped off toward the bridge to return to a much bigger island, which held our shared home.

We ascended the first half of the bridge -- cracks, fences, shadows, wind, dark-blue sky -- and when we reached the middle we stopped. Neither of us asked each other, or ourselves, why we had decided to stop, we just did, and we both found it appropriate. We set our bikes down on their sides and slinked into a pocket of darkness. MMS lit a joint. Then we began to talk at length. It was one of those conversations where you can almost separate yourself from what you are saying, sort of float above and watch yourself talk. You're listening to yourself almost as much as the person you are talking to is. In this type of instance, being in this particular mood and rare mindset, one is their most honest; because they're not attached to everything they're saying. It's as if to be briefly free of self-consciousness, but also entirely aware of this freedom all the while. Sitting there on the bridge's pavement, cross-legged -- suspended a hundred feet in the air above a dirty, fast-moving river, the rumbling traffic of trains and cars below, situated between bikers and nightwalkers passing on either side -- speaking intimately and openly in what could arguably be a most vulnerable situation, yet we were at ease. It was one of those moments that perpetually binds one person to another. When you both feel completely comfortable and entirely impassive.