Smoky grey
It is an autumn morning, the street is still half-empty. Students carrying backpacks can be seen, and older ones smoking alone, girls shivering in thin shirts, faces made up like perfect masks. A piercing voice awoken from sleep and from the warmth of the bed screams its importance, but it is early morning and no-one wants to hear it.
A man and a woman are walking along the pavement at the same speed.
After a few steps they are even closer together. They are looking at their shoes, listening to the sound they make and without falling out of rhythm, they carry on marching.
Suddenly she slows down, the man slows down a bit too, looking ahead but following what is happening next to him with interest. The woman’s pace gets fast and decisive again, then a sudden beam of light engulfs her like a hidden spotlight. Behind her the man is amazed and stares at the copper reflections of her hair.
She merely sneaks a look, enough to see it is a sophisticated gentleman that is walking with her early in the morning. So, she keeps on walking quickly like she does every morning.
On the last frenetic steps, she asks him: why are you walking so close to me?
Sorry, I didn’t mean to, I was distracted by your perfume.
Meanwhile, they find themselves together where they both had to go.
And what is so special about this perfume? Let’s hear it.
I don’t know, but it intrigued me and I followed it.
You mean you followed me.
Not you, your perfume.
The man sneaks away like a snake and lets himself get sucked up by the underground doors. He looks at the woman, shrugging his shoulders like the smirk of a clown after a practical joke, then he disappears in the noise.
She remains composed in the white lights and doesn’t know how to feel. She takes her dark glasses that were in her hair and slips them down to her nose, her fingers fiddling with a pearl necklace in her coat pocket. She puts in on straight away, before the train arrives, she doesn’t want to lose it again.