The Dreaming City

I stood at the tall windows and looked out upon the towers of glass and steel that made up the city. It was night and the city seemed deserted, the broad streets empty and the pavilions silent and only the occasional lighted window showed where the few inhabitants had gone for the evening.

I felt her hand on my shoulder and turned to find her waiting. We embraced without words, though we had been apart for so long, for words were not needed between us. We stood there in the room with the tall windows and the white walls and held each other.

Later we continued to hold each other as we lay there in bed. I felt her soft breath and knew that she was asleep but I resisted, lying there in the near darkness. I knew that when I slept I would wander again and it would be long before I returned. So many of us had learned to wander and each night fewer of us returned and so soon the city would fall dark and none would return to look upon its towers of glass and steel. And so I lay there in the darkness of the room with the white walls and the tall windows from which I had been gone for so long and wondered when I would ever return.