CHAPTER 1

PART I

Winter falls, billowing and gentle.

Inside this great hall the light is so brilliant it obscures you, a silhouette against the outside. This moment reflected in our attitude.

Painful interest is to be paid to structures compacted before us, then turned towards one another to cause flinches.

This is a lie. If I were to flinch, I was oblivious at this point in time.

Slowly we move between and around, further with each recoiling encounter.

Yet away from here, visitors hide in shops to gaze romantically at the perfection that is snow in Paris.

PART II

When we made it back to our crummy hotel it was nearly eight. I paused momentarily to greet our hosts, and sleepily studied by their many cats.

A compact spiral staircase guided us across a landing that sprawled like an ocean. We entered meekly, welcomed into a room overloaded with cascading floral patterns that met dimly with one another at the carpet.

I can’t remember the conversations that we had, but I’m sure that there weren’t many, and none with audience.

PART III

As the sunlight broke, a tiny window cast us cool and naked against the sheets –we hadn’t washed and we were sour. We coolly showered, as sexless as manikins.

The trip was a gift from her to us, I suspect, her last stand for preservation.

We missed our plane. I gazed untroubled, ‘wouldn’t we walk?’, I seemed to protest as she broke down beside me. At that moment we were severed with more finality than at any other time.