Why settle for second best was not a question but a command, the young woman with the big thighs leant forward into her sauce, alone and larger than life, as if slightly inflated, contrasting sharply against the three black girls whose laughter streams out in an unquenchable thirst, though the night, and they, were young.
Another woman wheelchaired into view and out of my life, taking the metallic face of her husband with her. A street ghost, thwarted by a wall of blue plastic, ran back and leafed through the pepper and the sauces, grabbed one and thrust it like a sword towards the clenched hands of Mr Metal Face. They leave together, friends forever or at least until the escaping safety of the exit.
The girls laughed on delirious, a spinning cacophony of words that dribbled and spat across dangerous lips, and teeth sharp enough to bite a man's heart out. The girl with the red smile spattered across her cheeks picked up her friend and left, laughing and crying at the same time: a living tapestry among the dirt of our existence.
Life with the colour turned up and the sound set to fuzzwah, instant feedback and no instant filled with anything less than me, me, me. A hand twirls and swirls the music flooding my ears walking in REM sleep and jerky head movements, a nod in the direction of the dancing faces, swirling and twirling dangerously surreal and dangerously near. They ignite, and the flame of their laughing is extinguished by the dark forgiving night.