Pretend you don't know me for just a few minutes. What would you think if you saw me on the sidewalk, going about my day just like you? Imagine a cold sidewalk bathed in luminous lamplight, the snow contemplating whether it should remain a liquid slush, or turn solid with the night time cold. Imagine yourself here, walking towards me, a stranger.

What would you notice first - my puffy blue coat, my unruly hair - or would you sense me first - hear my footsteps on the slushy snow. Or would you notice nothing, and let me slip right by? Would you nod hello or stare straight ahead...would you sense the energy and smile?

Pretend for a minute that you did smile. How might our lives be different? If we were no longer strangers, two souls walking just because. Walking to shake that restless feeling, to breathe the fresh air. Walking because there is nothing else to do. Tracing these streets on the palms of my hands, holding them together with every breath.

But no more pretending. We didn't stop, didn't smile. We just walked past each other, our thoughts too abundant for our minds. We kept walking, trying to reach that far off land of forgetting, that island of solitude forever out of reach. Walking the night through, watching the darkness pass by, unsure of where we're going but knowing its not to each other.