Arris fell out of time and landed in my lap. I was so surprised that I charmed her. Something like you belongs somewhere romantic, I said. Paris in sepia or a courtesan’s lace, an uncanny valley or gypsy caravan. Some place idyllic and far away. She laughed at me with social freedoms long since won in wars we forgot. ‘From hereon out I belong next to you,’ she said. ‘Whenever you need me that’s where I’ll be.’ I started counting my blessings and asked for seconds. ‘For you, I will always make time.’ After that, forever was never enough.
There’s one shot in the Parisian metro where she’s trying not to smile. It’s silent beauty composed through bearing and spoken by the eye, known but not tamed, lucid but aloof, like a corset on a cloud. Only, that doesn’t sell the elegance of the moment. She looks at me through time and space and all of the humanities. She sees a world where I am nothing and I am everything. I am always present in each of my absences, an unseen object become subject. There’s one inescapable moment where I look and long. In it, I am there.
A Few Short Words 