Beneath the Marquee

"I’ve done a lot of things," I casually mentioned, standing beneath a flashing marquee.  "Seen a lotta things."  Traffic sped by on the one way, throwing puddles of fresh rainwater across the both of us.  Neither of us paid it any mind.  Feet shuffled up and down the winding line; it turned out of sight around the corner.  The low chatter and checking of phones and shrugging of shoulders was what one would expect from such an impressive file of people.

"Yeah?" she responded.  "Like what?"  I couldn’t tell from her tone if she was interested or not.  She ran a hand through pitch black hair, and her head slowly tilted.  Our shoulders touched; I think they did, but my depth perception is bad, and I didn’t feel it through the terror of random conversation.

"Oh, most everything really."  A light bulb flashed out on the marquee; I felt weaker, and some of her color leached out into the surrounding world.  "Most anything you could really imagine."  A black owl flew between us.  "That’s odd," I muttered.  "Have you ever seen a black owl?"

I couldn’t really tell, but I think she smiled.  She talked through a snuffed-out cigarette and motes of quartz.  "Aren’t all owls black, especially at night beneath a marquee?"  I shrugged, ignorance covering indifference or embarrassment; either one, it didn’t matter.  "As for having seen and done things, I’m no stranger to the world."  A cockroach crawled across her face, and she didn’t mind.  "Let’s agree that for everything that’s ever happened that you didn’t do, I did."

The cockroach crawled across the street, defying traffic, defying death, and mainly defying common sense it couldn’t possibly possess.  "Did you know that if you cut off a cockroach’s head, it will live nine days until it starves to death?"  The insect crawled out of the streetlight and out of existence.  She turned away from me; I think she did, at least–her face was distinctly indistinct.

"Let’s agree that for everything you’ve ever thought, I’ve thought everything else."  With that, I was nearly positive she was no longer facing me, although I couldn’t be sure.  Feeling rebuffed, I allowed the silence to shroud the both of us.  The bells and whistles of downtown spoke, and we both quietly listened.  As the wait dragged interminably on, more bulbs flashed out.  I was getting weaker.  Tired.

Suddenly, she spoke.  "Do you feel like you disappear?  At night, I mean?"  I saw her for what she was, then.  A well filled with tar; thick, viscous, and close to dry or impossibly deep; one or the other–it didn’t matter.  "I like to think I’m there during the night, but I’m not sure.  I’m not sure at all, so I stick to the light."  My feet felt uncomfortable.  Then again, they almost always do.  She noticed my discomfort.  Or should I say, she sensed it, as I displayed no ostensible sign of it.  "I always feel like someone’s stepping on my feet, too."

The marquee flashed out completely, and we disappeared.  "Are you there?"