I met him under the blue-lit oak tree. He came walking round the corner, each step poised lightly and perfectly on the edge of the brick wall that bordered the pavement. When I saw him, he had paused, with one foot in front of the other, to turn his head upwards to the night sky. He was looking at the moon.
His skin glowed blue-white and his features were washed out in the cold light that streamed down through the trees. I saw him lift his chin still higher, breathe in deeply the moonlight and sharp steel air. He didn't exhale. While his eyes were closed I slid down from the tree and leant on my hands, pressing them against the trunk with the small of my back. I could feel my cheeks reddening in the November air.
When he opened his eyes, his head was already turned to see me. I smiled. He smiled back and jumped from the wall. His feet didn't make a sound as he landed, or as he walked closer until the lights of the oak tree created a blue glow on his hair and his clothes. Standing there, his face was still as white as when he stood out beneath the moon. He leaned against the tree beside me and glanced over my face before returning his gaze to the street.
'What is this place?' He asked. His voice was quiet and clear, like soft piano notes.
'This is Norwich,' I said. I settled further back against the trunk of the blue-lit oak tree.
He breathed out without inhaling, a soft clipped breath. 'I like it here,' he said.
'I do, too,' I said. 'I've always lived here.'
He nodded, as if he already knew. 'I've meant to come down for a long time.' He looked up into the branches. 'It was because of the lights.'
I smiled as I looked up with him. For a moment we were silent, holding our breath and gazing up together into the tiny blue lights that adorned the oak tree. They were always there, throughout the year.
He exhaled again and turned towards me. 'Would you like to walk?'
I paused, looking out into the town. The streets were quiet and bare. There was no one about.
'Yes,' I said.
That night we moved like we had forever, like we could keep walking into the night and the sun would never rise, and we would never go back to the brick wall that bordered the pavement. The moon was lost behind the trees, or maybe behind the clouds. I looked for it and couldn't find it.
The wind brushed against our cheeks and pulled my hair back from my ears, tucked it behind my shoulders. We moved closer together. I buttoned my jacket. A group of students jostled along the pavement and I tried to pull back, to disappear beneath the trees. But he held my hand and kept me with him. They didn't even see us, and together we watched them turn the corner past the roundabout. It was quiet again. We walked.
We never spoke along the way. Walking beside each other hand in hand, our shoulders occasionally brushing together, was enough. Speech would only have disrupted the sacred silence that enveloped us. Words would have burned our mouths on that cold night.
I thought of the moment he had leapt from the brick wall, that weightless space when everything was still. I wished he had jumped from something higher. We walked in that moment outside of time and gravity, when we went where we wanted to go and not where we were tied by nature. Our time was short, only a moment's worth. Only one breath.
We stood again beneath the blue lights, our fingers still curled around each other's. It was quiet and still and cold, as if no time had passed since we left. Maybe it hadn't. Looking up at the sky like he had when I first saw him, he slowly released my hand. He didn't breathe. He seemed to be waiting for something.
I leant back against the trunk, pressing my hands once more to the bark. A moment passed before he turned his head to look at me. The moon had appeared just above him like a halo. I smiled at him. He smiled back and exhaled, but it was longer this time, almost a sigh. He had used up his allowance.
On that night the universe had circled around to watch, until he returned to the moon and I to the blue-lit oak tree.
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