They had seen a movie.

“It’s a good thing we’re not friends,” she chuckled and took a drag from her cigarette. She uncrossed her legs, pulling them closer to her chest. The late spring evening was brisk, but humid and the smell of the cold ozone sat in a sheer mist on her exposed skin. She was cold, but would never admit it; never admit her hyperborean nature was a façade and she was vulnerable to the chemical reactions of her nerves. No, submission was a weakness. Yet even here, sitting on the hood of a red convertible, looking out over the bright spec that was Tokyo, she felt cold. And alone.

She paid.

“So I guess you should get off my car then?” The young man inside the windshield muttered, searching for a station with something good on. The night air, punctuated by the swish of cars and chirping of crickets was too much silence for him and he felt it weigh on everything around him like that time not so long ago when she put her head on his shoulder smelling of cloves and tobacco in that cliched way of hers just pushing and pushing on his shoulder until he could feel her head sinking into his shoulder like those rocks he used to toss as a kid just literally sinking. He managed to chase it away with “Sympathy for the Devil” and fell back in his seat with a sigh.

He closed his eyes, the images of the last several hours playing through his head. Lisa stumbling down the street, following the yellow line like some sort of blind snake, the multicolored lights dancing around on her skin and clothes, bleaching her of color and putting in all their own like that paint-dropper tool on those computer paint programs that steals and replaces and steals until no amount of CTRL Z can get the original pattern back. A light spring rain further convoluting the mixture, but also lessening its intensity, drawing the lights to the greedy puddles and blacktop, eager to absorb that which would otherwise bounce on forever.

So he took her in his car. He thought he was being sympathetic. “I know a spot.” And she came with him. He took her from those lights and all the while she babbled and smoked, always blanketing herself with cloves, tobacco, and naiveté with no intention of stopping. Then she was leaning in his window, whispering in his ear.

“Mark, how can you sleep at a time like this? Halfway across the globe all of America is awake! And within 6 miles of where we are sitting this very second someone is awake taking a piss and getting a glass of water.”

He didn’t open his eyes. She would tire herself out eventually, she had to.

“And what about the sleeping people? We need to at least watch the world for them while they’re away. That way we can tell them all about it when they get back. All about this rain and your car, my cigarettes and how I finally let you do me.” The rain had gently started up again, falling in the soft and steady fashion it usually did near mountain tops or beaches whenever one has plans to go on a sightseeing trip and try to win her heart which was always closed to anyone and everyone not because she was afraid, but because it could never stop, never grow moss, and it just kept rolling, rolling, and rolling.

Bouncing all the while.

“What was that last one?”

“Your car.”

“Lisa, we should go.” He looked at her, her eyes filmed over. She blew smoke from her nostrils. “You need to sleep.” She stared at him. What was she thinking? Anything? Would she come? They could sit in his studio apartment on the futon and watch music videos on mute, drink orange juice at 2 AM and dangle their feet out of the window, kiss and then roast a turkey. With Lisa, anything. And yet, her words still stung. Happy not to be friends and still to know everything about each other from middle names to the smell of her hair when she woke up in the summer. Why not be friends then? It was a matter of words, not of matter or emotion. A thing with nouns, with people “you know well and regard with affection and trust” in the words of Webster. And he trusted her. He loved her. She blew a plume of smoke into his ear softly, so that it more crept in than penetrated his ear, warm and delicate. Then she stood up, leaving him to lay there, his eyes half open, and turned her back to the car, walking down the dirt path that had already become muddy.

“Yeah. Let’s get out of here. There are better places to breath."