Cities that Never Sleep

xx

"What's your most unrealistic dream?" Finn asked, late at night, when neither really didn't care about what they were saying, streaked by the funny carelessness of sleeplessness.

"Don't laugh," she warned him, "but when I was little, I wanted to by a small house that was situated above a great, big waterfall, with grass everywhere, and no one else around. Only with the people I loved. We'd plant flowers or something." she smiled. "Like in that movie."

"Like in the children's movie? Up?"

"Yeah."

"That is so cliché."

Finn chuckled. Katherine chuckled. They were drunk off of the night.

"What's yours?" Katherine retuned the question to him.

"Getting out of this city." Finn said rather sincerely, which surprised himself.

"Why?"

"I don't know. It just feels like I'm stuck here. Stranded. Like there's more out there in the world than this. I used to think that this is what I wanted, that living here was my dream." he tried to explain, but fell at a loss of words.

At this moment, he felt alive. Happy. So why was he saying all of this?

The thoughts in his mind contradicted each other and what he had wrapped his head around for months. He felt stranded, but he didn't always. He liked the city, maybe more at night, but he felt small. He liked the time he spent with Katherine.

He wondered if it was just the lack of sleep getting to his brain.

"What is happiness?" Finn suddenly asked not Katherine in particular, but rather thought aloud.

Katherine let the silence consume them. Then, she answered, "I'm still trying to figure that out."

1:52 am, and Katherine's lying in bed, eyes staring out into the sleepless city of her bedroom window, and she asks herself that question again.