Imagine strangers

“I began to like New York, the racy, adventurous feel of it at night, and the satisfaction that the constant flicker of men and women and machines gives to the restless eye. I liked to walk up  Fifth Avenue and pick out romantic women from the crowd and imagine that in a few minutes I was going to enter their lives, and no one would ever know or disapprove. Sometimes, in my mind, I followed them to their apartments on the corners of hidden streets, and they turned and smiled back at me before they faded through a door into warm darkness”

F.Scott Fitzgerald. The Great Gatsby.

I guess, that's just how it all gets started. Imagination. Gathering up details carefully observed or unintentionally seen on a routinary bus one afternoon. A catch up phrase. A stare. A tattoo in the wrong place. The biting on that inferior lip. The book she was reading, which evaded from all the movement around her, or even the uncomfortable pushing around of people in the underground.

The smell of fresh made pizza pouring out onto the streets. The scent of fruits been stacked up early morning, just arriving from the truck when lights are still off. Eau de cologne. The unmissable odour of desire. 

The darkness of a summer night, but still a full moon to light them. Laughing from a teenage crowd. She twisted her ankle (oh hell!). The oven and a smell of chocolate brownie, the taste of guilty pleasures. Take away coffee, please, Ariana, no sugar. Thanks. 7.30 rush.

Life just walks by besides us. Details. Facts. Parts of missing conversations. Puzzles from everyday life. That's just the best plot, isn't it? Life.