In Continuum.

In Your Atmosphere

I don't think I'm gonna go to LA anymore
I don't think I'm gonna go to LA anymore
I don't know what it's like to land
And not race to your door
I don't think I'm gonna go to LA anymore

Smoke rose from the burning sausages, they twirled into thin creepy arms under the dusty yellow light bulbs, hanging from cables from the top of the tents. They swirled around them, caressing the bulb with their translucent fingers, in love with the artificiality of this luminous orb. In love, in love with the bustle of the night market, the crowd running like insects down the middle of the stores, shoulders to shoulders, the atmosphere infecting the rest of the neighbourhood.

The children held on to the metal bars before them, as the white elephants started with orbit about the center. Their ears shot out on both sides, neon lights blinking on and off as it went round and round, round and round about the center, the children screaming in joy, while next to the cage of white elephants, the train rumbled to a sudden jerky stop, the children took careful steps out of the tram, unsatisfied and bored. This is the atmosphere, the atmosphere of your neighbourhood.

I don't think I'm gonna go to LA anymore
I'm not sure that I really ever could
Hold on to the hotel key
of your bedroom neighborhood
We sleep walk in Hollywood

The corridors of your block always seem lonely and sad whenever you are not around. I took a stroll up to the top floor and wandered around the spot we squatted at only the night before, and the 16th floor window our heads fought to squeeze through so many times. The wind blew like the January ones did, the remnants of the fleeting winter finally succumbing to the equatorial climate. Too cold to be up there alone, perhaps it was time to go home. Instead of the lifts I took the staircases down the stairwell, the one in front of your house for no reasons at all.

Your neighbour doesn't have a door knob, and downstairs the untidy shoes of your fourth floor neighbour laid here and there on the shelves and floor. Further down the noise of the television filtering through the brown wooden doors, people like you minding their own businesses now, knowing that I have gone and left. I took each step of the staircase as slowly as possible, breathing in the air that was around me, feeling the place where you grew up in, your atmosphere. It felt lonely and it felt sad, almost cynical as well. But that was all right, I thought to myself. And through the white metal railings of the stairwell I looked at the corner of your house's door, hoping that you would burst out again to say a last goodbye to me, to give me a goodbye kiss. But it remained closed, and the television downstairs continued blaring over the peace that lingered above my head but spelled the rage in my heart.

I'm gonna steer clear
I burn up in your atmosphere
I'm gonna steer clear
Cause I'd die if I saw you
I'd die if I didn't see you there
So I don't think I'm gonna go to LA anymore

There is a sit-up bench in the fitness station below your window. Two kids, a boy and a girl sat with their legs dangling on either side of it, with the boy in front as the driver and the girl behind. I sat there watching them, as their maid sat a distance away, messaging away on her phone. The boy asked me with his big brown eyes if I want to go anywhere on his bus, and I replied with a smile to him," I'm already here. I'm waiting for somebody." The boy smiled, and then jumped off the 'bus' onto the monkey bars behind, dangling there like a piece of dead pork. I sat there with my knees curled in and chin tucked in between them as the wind picked up speed. Even on the first floor of your house everything felt so cold, so alone.

But the truth was I wasn't waiting for anybody, which kind of meant that I lied to that poor young boy who offered me a free ride on his bus to nowhere. The buses came and went, the buses I was supposed to take to get home, but they came and left, unloading a bunch of passengers at the stop. All of them scrambling to get home at that hour of the evening, but none of them took heed of me, though it's not like I wanted their attention anyway. The piano tracks rang through my ears as I turned up to volume, trying desperately to be submerged in my own atmosphere, to steer clear from yours because I was going to burn up, burn up so soon. But your atmosphere threatened to invade, and I succumbed to it as the maid brought the children away, leaving me alone in the corner of your estate to look up into your darkened window.

I dont think I'm gonna go there anymore
I get lost on the boulevard at nite
Without your voice to tell me
"I love you, take a ride"
Dinner for two is a lonely sight

The lights came on, your room looked rather purple from where I was. The old calendar still hung from the window, and from the corner of my eyes it always looked like your peering down on me. The lamp stood alone in the middle while on the right, the dresser ornaments hung as they were from hooks and knobs. I took a picture then, with the yellow lamp on the top right of the picture, emitting a cold glow in the picture. I reached out to my phone, wanting to call you. But more afraid than what I might hear, I was afraid of what I might say. The blue blower laid crumpled by my feet on the rubbery floor, the cold wind blew it away and still I sat there alone, hoping for a sign of life, a sign of you.

I'm gonna steer clear
I burn up in your atmosphere
I'm gonna steer clear
Cause I'd die if I saw you babe
I'd die if I didn't see you there
I'm gonna steer clear
I burn up in your atmosphere
I'm gonna steer clear
Cause I'd die if I saw you
I'd die if I didn't see you there
See you there

The calendar was dropped, the window opened and the metal railings pushed away. Your little black head from way down here popped up over the ledge. Your arms hung over the window sill, and you waved at me though I couldn't quite make out what your face looked like. I smiled again, and I wonder if you could see me doing so. But then at that moment both atmospheres were broken, mine and your neighbourhood's. I was just in our own atmosphere, the one we always create when we are next to each other. Five floors up there you were, and what are we in this world if not for each other? With you I am in another world entire, a world with no cold winds and no ignorant passerby, just you and I where we feel safe with one another. I enjoy you, and I enjoy being in your atmosphere, because right here I burn up not due to the speed of falling, but the fire that rages with the falling in to love.

I love you, and I love you still. Come back to the window once again, so we can repair this hole and begin again. Don't keep me waiting, we are both tired.

I think I'm gonna stay
All the street lights say nevermind, nevermind
All the canyon lines say nevermind
Sunset since we see it all the time
Nevermind, never you mind..