A Viewing Room
Somewhere off the coast, on the first night of fall, it was one in the morning. Somewhere people were curled up in patchy quilts, snoozing. Somewhere a party had ended and young couples were walking home, coats held close to their necks with hopes to ward off a small cold, talking about the evening, about the party, about what they liked about each other. How they’d all pass by, like a train blowing through a railway station at a hundred miles an hour. Somewhere someone was eating soup out of white bowls in a continental climate, the short days unwinding into long, languid nights of black ink and milky stars, the kind of cold air that children blow like faux smoke, laughing at each others red faces.
