Too slow.

It is 5AM, and the sun over the bus stop is rising much too quickly. My face is buried in his shoulder, and his eyes I'm sure are closed while his arms are around me, pressing me close enough to feel that his breathing is unsettled. We stay like this for quite some time in a wistful silence. The tension is torturous, fascinating. A masterpiece of composition. "We'd make quite the sculpture, the way we are now."

--"A sculpture? Yes. The mothers would bring their children by, saying: See, children. This is what happens when you're too slow."

He says the forest at dawn is beautiful, but he wouldn't let me walk with him. Wär schön gewesen.

Tissues

My friend, usually impeccably behaved, had had a bit too much to drink, and was decorating a Berlin train platform with regurgitated Averna. A kind passer-by, seeing we had run out of tissues, offered us a full pack of her own to help minimize my friend's discomfort and embarrassment. It warms my heart to know that people like this exist.