I walked and walked and walked.

And I kept walking.

And I started to feel the city grabbing at my muscles.

It must have noticed me trudging through its veins, long enough to stand out. The other passers-by would go from one place to the next, and rush around in their boxes, or sit or sleep or whatever else, high above, and the city would see them as the same old blur. And it would sigh, and wait, once again, for someone to take the time to say hello.

I felt it find me. I felt it in my hips, tendrils of sandstone wormed their way in and made me ache. I felt it nibble at my toes and heels as if to say “hello, friend”. And they ached too. Maybe that’s what hello feels like. The dusty air threw its arms around my shoulders, weighing heavy on my back and salting my skin.

I stopped and looked up, and behind, and ahead. And I said, “City, let’s get a beer.”. And I knelt on the city’s grass, and cracked open a can. And as I swallowed, I felt the sighs of those dusty aches. And the city and I watched the blur of lights and sounds and all the people who didn’t have the time. Together.