He & She

City. Crowded street, busy intersection. Rivers of people flow towards each other, but do not collide, but mix in oncoming traffic. Faces flash, hands with phones, snippets of phrases. Everyone is running somewhere, immersed in their thoughts. Countless feet trample the sky into wet asphalt. Speckled shop windows reflect hurrying people, multiplying and multiplying them to infinity.
In this close movement, in the very thick of the crowd, one feels loneliness especially sharply. It is here of a special kind, not the same as in the forest or on the high seas. This is the loneliness of the big city. It is as big as the city itself.
I peer into these faces as if into a crazy kaleidoscope, I look in them for that very combination of features, that very breath, those very eyes in which I saw the sea, the deserted coast and the wing of a seagull …