Strangers

This terrible rush comes over, too diligent, too soft-spoken to be heard amidst the clang and clatter of whatever thing he thought to be thinking of falling out. And she wonders at it, whether the voice that sputters out such random and perverse and sometimes, sometimes flattering vapidity is just a construct of her own gray matter folds or if it's coming from anyone's blinking shattered eyes that scream out for a lick of any measure of attention. It's a mess, to be sure, to pull what's real out from what's imagined and she thinks, perhaps, of him doing the same?

She can't be, he can't be
sure.

Oh but this weighs heavily upon them, strangers as they are, struggling with finding meaning in hidden lash bats and bristling mourning as the crowds file up and down like space age computer punch cards... each punch in place bringing the difference to a head until neither can stand it and the one goes in and the other leaps out and there's a vacuum left in the middle again,

like a starry pool of liquid, liquid void
a dead space, hollow and silver and dreaming of

Fists going upward and teeth gnashing and all of this because of a flipped coin or a butterfly's sneeze or whatever it is that causes one foot to turn in one direction and in the blink of an eye everything's gone and changed again.

They don't KNOW each other, and never will, not because of fate or destiny or anything large, but, because of small things, tiny things, microscopic things pushing them one place or another while halfway across the world or halfway across town they are frozen with fear and with disbelief, searching the source for transmissions or heartbeats or something that sings with the primal energy of a calling, one brain to one brain until, zombie-like, they move in a straight line, one point to one point... they wait for it

And wait for it
And wait for it

There might be a telephone call in her head or a letter written out on his desk, but they don't know the numbers or the addresses or even, by God, the recipient. They are throwing the words, the message, the missive, the correspondence and the very thought of it into the atmosphere and praying for some sort of long traveled balloon postcard response from that ideal that's been etched in white hot acid on the leathery flaps and armor of their slowly fading hearts.