brief encounters

It started with a chance meeting while "out on the town" in this city that sucks away my sleep on a nightly basis. On a night when the bars and parties closed their doors and no one was ready for it to end, not ready for real life to start again the next morning. When the cigarettes begin to run out and the booze is tapped from hidden cabinets where it seemed to wait on reserve for a night like this.

I feel most alive on these nights. I feel most in control, most out of control, my heart beating faster as I laugh and forget about my tangled hair and disappearing makeup as the sun rises on the most beautiful of terraces in a beautiful city.

I entered the compound in the hills for a night; an alternate universe I knew would be ephemeral. So I soaked it in, trying to remember names, faces and the architecture as best I could. Everyone was interesting; everyone was a character working towards something, but living to interact with everyone around them. To me, they exist only to tell their stories, however outlandish and exaggerated they may be.