Am I 'Absolute'?

135: 00:09AM

   00:09AM.

   It's an anxious time.

   The time where the only whispers of the day's business are mere dreams. Or they are the distant echoes in your ears as though a piece of tune from some childhood song were dancing along the edge of your memory, too far to recognise but just enough to hear.
   It's the kind of time when street lights are dulled by fine simmers of rain and the cold tickles like spider trails across your exposed skin. My skin. My aching, shivering skin in my thin shirt and joggers. Old trainers so worn and fraying that the weight of dampness pulls apart the fabric in a way that only time itself can appreciate for it's own work and not the borrower of the shoes. My lethargic steps would probably echo if not for the mud that I choose to trod on rather than the intended stone path. I could give some lying reason as to why I am out here on the streets in the dark; a reason like late-night shopping for something I forgot to buy earlier or if I so chose to lie that I am homeless. I could say that I am walking a dog which in reality doesn't exist with a smoke that I don't fancy. I could even lie that I was meeting someone to fill my voided time. But there is no reason.
   Maybe a stroll. Maybe a wander.

   I shrug to myself and breathe deep breaths of the cold air. I feel the fragments of dropping clouds swirling like snowflakes somewhere dark inside my lungs. The exhale being a steady puff of warm flying cloud.

   I slip and barely catch myself from plummeting with a nauseous gut wrench. Once I can gasp into normal breathing I glance around quickly and see a person who possibly could have seen my almost disaster. The warmth in my neck and cheeks feel like a fever against the drizzle so I stick to the stones which I feel I could skip on they are so sturdy compared to the grass. How well are the person's eyes? Did they bother to think any judging thoughts or is their mind set on their destination so they didn't notice? Where is their destination? What roads will they take to get there?

    I walk past a house just as someone leaves the front gate. They don't notice me nor I them until we are about to collide. We both stop abruptly and stare at each other's shadows over the other's shoulder, the streetlight over our heads giving the substances we carry like clothing, our extra visible souls an almost tangible viscosity. Then we mutter apologies, step to the side and find we have both stepped the same way. We both try again and seem to be starting the rhythm of a dance until I finally stand solemnly long enough for them to realise I won't be moving. They glide around me and within a few moments are mist within the mist never to notice again.
   Who are they? What lives do they carry and what thoughts do those lives think? My next thoughts carry with my footfalls. What has life given them that made them choose to step out of the gate at that exact time? How long have they been planning to leave their house that they chose to go at night?

   Humans fascinate me sometimes.