Talking to Death

I met her here on one of the bad days. One of those dark, cold, wet ones where the sun decided to keep its distance and where there was a permanent grey drizzle in the air.

I smelt her first. Not the most usual way to meet people but I like it because I can close my eyes and recall that light fragrance that makes you think of all the absurd, psychotic, and ridiculously sad things that make the world great.

I was crouched on a stone and brooding about things and hating myself. I do that sometimes, when everything turns into shadows and deep ebony with slashes of red in between.

I didn't quite realize she was there behind me until she touched me, and asked me if I'd like ice-cream. I turned then. I had thought that I had been alone. 'Why?' I asked. She said it was because no one ever looked sad while eating ice-cream, at least not to her knowledge. So we did.

She dragged me off to one of those old classic, soda fountains. I had vanilla, she stuck to chocolate, the only thing really worth having, she had said. But then it's all a matter of taste.

We talked about all kinds of things, not where we came from or what we did, but of boxers and briefs, of coffee, of her ice-cream philosophy and what we thought about if we saw the sunset, and if love was just a fickle thing, and of accepting 'what is'.

I really looked at her then. We were in one of those semi-private booths with a crazy looking Tiffany lamp swinging back and forth between us. She was neither pale nor dark, kind of wraithlike, and she wore all black --not a Goth though, I asked her that. What she looked like didn't register at first but it came to me later. She had this mad mass of black hair all the way down half her back. It wasn't exactly straight but you couldn't call it curly either. She wasn't tall but kind of petite in a way that didn't make her a midget. Her face was like all the female faces of the world combined, and somehow it came out with something extraordinary. Not gorgeous but beautiful. Her eyes were as black as the hair she kept pushing out of her face.

She made me accept things, things 'that were' but she did it with relish. She wasn't a cynic or one of those red-blooded optimists that make you want to do them bodily harm; she saw things as they were--no more, no less. She wasn't a realist either 'cause that's just a pessimist with another name. She accepted 'what is' and moved on with it. She wasn't scared of the truth and that's what I admired most about her, 'cause I was.

By then the rain had stopped and we went to a slightly tweaked version of Central Park, on a much smaller scale. She found some bread, or stole it--I don't know--she was always doing things like that. Getting free meals by just being nice, our ice-creams were on the house, running away with a string of animals trailing behind her, she had let them loose from their cages. We fed the pigeons. One of them crapped on my jacket and we both started laughing. And Life just wasn't so bad anymore.

We ate hot-dogs, she split hers with a stray dog while my sausage got stolen by a raven. She could have coaxed it to give it back, but I didn’t want it by then. "Ravens are people too," she had said. Another one of those cryptic things that made no sense but a lot of sense. But I'’ contradicting myself again. I always do when I talk about her.

We went to a vintage clothing store, tried on everything, bought nothing, 'that's the way it should be' she laughed as we strolled out. Drew stick men in the dirt and ended up lying on a huge stone slab staring into the sky and talking.

And then the day was over and she had to go. I never did find out what her name was, somehow we never got to that. What she did and where she lived are still a mystery to me. But she showed me who she was, and that counts for something I suppose.

I think I even fell in love with her, a bit, towards the end, but then we all do every time. That's what is.