Dusk spread its wings. “god it’s cold” I said. “yes”, she agreed, “it’s cold alright. So why are we out here?”
“No reason”, I said. “I just needed some air and you said you’d come so here we are”
The sky hung low, like the sagging roof of a blanket fort and the smell of approaching rain seemed to be coming off the gray stone buildings around us.
“By my estimation”, I said, “we have maybe an hour before it drops.”
We studied the lackluster sky together in silence. “Let’s go in”, she said. “I really am cold”.
“You go ahead”, I told her. “I’ll be there in a minute.” Behind us, the light from the bar spilled across the damp street, making fantastic shadows of the shrubbery, all gnarled fingers.
“Want anything? I’m after a hot toddy?” She asked over her shoulder”.
“Sure, thanks” I called after. “Make it two”
Again, silence. The quiet, like the cold is what I wanted. It’s bracing and irrefutable, something you can hold onto, the way a person pinches themselves to stay away or how they dunk the town alcoholic with a bucket of cold water in the old Westerns. That’s what I want, a good dunking. By the look of things, maybe I’ll get one.