interlude

 There was a time when this place was all about swift dusks, solitary evenings and half-known pangs of longing. Of evenings that become nights with always the damn it's already dark. Long walks, longer talks with dark eyes.
   The one that begins from park circus (near the church, where the tram stops and I check out others), past Zeeshan's aroma of kebabs (gentle ribbing at my apetite for mughlai. I retort: "tui toh na kheyeo ekta mutki!") onwards down the gentle curve of the divider, thinking of all that could've been and talking of queen jane. approximately. and at Gariahat it ends, too soon as always.
   There was a time when I would have cabbed from there all the way, dropping you off safely outside the gate and then sit back savoring the cab's now-empty interiors. Like a knight-errant after some completed quest.

 Not so now. Too much water flowing under too rickety a bridge. This bill's not mine to pay anymore.