4F

Here I sit gobsmacked, and my cd player has given up the ghost.

15 minutes ago: We are driving up Fell, my arms are wrapped tightly across my chest, I have tucked my legs into a vice. The cab driver is having an animated conversation in Arabic, with just enough English to keep my ears cocked.

The rain is undecided, a smattering on the wind shield, the wipers screech slowly on the glass, the cabbie chatters on, and my protective arms squeeze tighter, I call to my limbs, and so we retract, the heedless cabbie chatters on, and the wipers complain, and the street shudders from green to yellow to red. It's not late enough, I am not drunk enough.

25 minutes ago: We are exiting Claude, concede a kiss, quell a parting shot.

15 minutes ago: Street lights for shadow play, I keep watching the shadow of my taught head play across the passenger seat, and again, and again. I suppress a giggle at the metaphor, I do not wish to disturb the cabbie. I take a breath and pause to reflect at the high comedy that is the Crush That Refuses To Go the Way of the Dodo. I have resorted to any number of Shakespearean banishments, get thee from me, out, out damn spot, and just when I think that I am free, a warmed palm, and so I keel, there I silently keen, but for the fleeting warmth of a hesitant palm.

57 minutes ago: The banter is flowing as freely as the booze, every thing is loaded, everything is loaded. Hands to shoulders, an accidental, on purpose graze. At this juncture I am played, \I am such an eager, eager puppy.

The Present: The eves are singing O Discordia, and drops are pinging off of the trash cans, I am wearing someone else's glass of wine, pulling on a nearly extinct cigarette, and keeping my thighs clenched. I cannot shed you, try as I might. There you are in your jacket, bat-winged and broadchested. Damn you. Damn you , damn the drink.