18th April 2001

A warm summer's evening.

He, walking with his jacket draped over one shoulder, a hand holding it in place, eyes down, lost in thought - perhaps a touch more lost than usual, carefully placing his feet down - left, then right, in the middle of the weathered flagstones paving the sidewalk.

She, walking with both hands around a paper bag containing a ridiculous little toy bear, on his right; a bear that had previously spent it's evening in a large cardboard box, shielded from the small talk and little pranks played over dinner, from the tiny insanities that only the oldest and dearest of friends dare play on each other.

It is, by all accounts, a beautiful evening to be out walking, but neither seems to notice, both engrossed in the chaotic silence of their thoughts.

"What do you want?" - the words fall like an axe, her voice slightly on the high side yet strangely perhaps, a little nasal with just a hint of austra-merican mixed in, betraying a childhood between continents. Possibly. A voice to him, as always, wonderful to simply be hearing in real life.

He looks at his feet. It's been a confusing night that's turned out completely differently to anything he'd imagined. All roads lead to rome except this flag-stoned meandering path; all he knows is that he's got to put his feet down in the middle of each flag-stone. He isn't sure what to think. Think, dammit, think. You've got to think. What do you want?

I want the impossible; I want pasts unmade, I want time reversed; I want paths crossed - or uncrossed? I want decisions unspoken; I want to be able to read your mind right now. I want to know what you want me to say - do you really want me to answer that, to tell you what I really want? I want to walk here, by your side, forever.

He keeps walking in silence, eyes fixed on the next flagstone, and the next. You've got to concentrate, put your foot - just there, and there. You've got to keep your world together, sanity is kept a step at a time. He contemplates telling the truth - but knows the truth will get him nowhere. Although it's already been a night of revelations, reality has to set in, and realities are Separate Existences, realities are two Worlds that do not intersect. Realities are hard, practical things that - even a dreamer remembers. Or perhaps he's just not very good at being a dreamer.

Truth or dare? He doesn't dare to ask the question back - it never even occurs to him. And truth, this once seems to have exhausted itself; he's exhausted. He came tonight to undo something, perhaps the strings to his own sanity. Perhaps he just came to unbind himself from the Truth, or perhaps he's slightly masochistic and enjoys wreaking heartache on himself, or perhaps he's always been sincere all along, about placing her above himself.

And so he lies. For all the good it will do him. It's the poorer of the two answers, it will provoke a poorer response, it fails the risk-benefit analysis - but he's tired, and confused. He keeps his eyes fixed on his feet, he doesn't dare look her in the eye.

"What do you want?"

"I don't know".

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