Trip Day 4 (The Brown Walls of Valentines Day)

Better get this trip retelling over with soon. Day 4, which was Tuesday, Feb. 14th, Valentines Day, was my relaxing/working day (indeed they can be one and the same). I sat around in the hotel room writing mad stories. This on Valentines Day! What an idiot am I! I should have baked heart shaped cookies or made sweet little cards, but here I was writing stories! And do you know what I did later that evening ~ I played poker with the guys (even for a little money) - a table full of men! But my goodness, that was the best Valentines evening ever (am I sarcastic? you'll have to ask me!). And Armin won again in a heated head to head match with Francesco, even after he angered the poker gods. But yes, and no! That was it, and now I'll give you an excerpt from the short story "The Brown Walls of Potter's Street" It's still in first draft, so excuse...

Judas Lee has just moved in upstairs. He has hair like a lampshade, and all the girls adore. But he doesn’t care for them, he tells me. One dry summer evening, our backs to the brown brick wall, he says, *girls are just yellow-tinted windows*. The salty strains of the tired blues sound come sliding down the alleyway, and those men who hurry by on the streets seem to carry it with them on their backs. And when they pass, the moth cluttered light of the corner lamps pulls their features into strange black beaks, and we realise that there is something hidden in each one of them. *Where do you think the music comes from?* he asks me after a long silence. I take a deep breath from the narghile we share between us, and let the fluttering cloud mix with the tones of the light before answering. “The shadows”, I say. *No* Judas replies, *the shadows are too thin. It’s gotta be deeper*.