Bracelet

I heard a strained cackle coming from behind the bush.

It leapt out from the baseline din of the financial district plaza.

I put down my lunch and I put down my lunch break and peeked over the bush.

Big mane of bronze hair with a person beneath, vibrating second-wise.

They put both their hands down on the concrete bench and let out the strained cackle again, cackling until it was only a breathless roar.

They turned their face up towards me, a face scrunched up in please help me.

I leapt clean over the bush to their side, spraining my ankle not from the landing but from wasted and unfettered pride.

They held up their palm towards me, close so I could even smell the plaza concrete on their hand.

The palm had a splinter in it the size of a piece of wood.

Chopstick detachment gone wrong, lunch sushi boxes uneaten, pile of five.

I rummaged in my pocket array for my tweezer, for my brows had a daily rhythm.

I pinched gently at their palm, hearing the metal clip the wood, they pulled their hand away from the clip, the tweezer with it, the tweezer dangled as we stared at each other, the pump of the foundation piling of a new skyscraper shuddered nearby.

Clanging as the tweezer fell to the ground, shudder.

They looked at their palm, running their skinny fingers over the pinch point, smile that pushed their cheeks into their eyelids. Their arms wide open, shudder of the piles.

I picked up my tweezer from the ground, still grasping the splinter of failed chopstick.

They thrust a box of sushi in my face, the corner pressing against the tip of my nose in a rhythm.

I pull away and shake my head with a scrunched up smile.

Their face wide open, they rummage in their handbag and carefully hand me a business card , offering it with both hands.

I take it and gesture that I don't have one. For some reason, we have avoided language.

They hand me a notepad and a pen and I write down my email address.

They take it gratefully, bouncing on the bench, before checking their watch and gathering their sushi and launching away with a wave.

I jump back over the bush, straining my other ankle out of not pride but fidgeting. And finish my lunch, I look at the business card, it was made of polished bamboo, shades of all the browns possible, I turned it over to see the name, but it was blank, only another polished side, nothing but a brown reflection of my face, in front of a bush, in front of a crane. Shudder.

I keep getting pushed at my shoulder and I spin, I spin, in a tight spiral barrell roll I'm a vortex pushing away clothes racks in the department store.

In bed, my shoulder is being pushed, I need to wake up, there is someone outside with a car.

Outside, a brown executive saloon with large antennae and wing mirrors the size of watermelons.

I come up to the car, yawn condensation all over the window. The front door opens, and they with the big bronze hair is there, looking large in the car, their arms encircling the dashboard.

I sit down inside and close the door, their face wide open, they lean over to the back of the car to get a bamboo box from the rear seat, where the chauffeur is sitting with a joyful pout face, as if sucking on a sweet.

"The sweetness of them" the chaffeur says, nodding towards them with the big bronze hair.

They put the box in my lap and I make the box wide open.

A bamboo bracelet, perfectly circle, polished even sheerer than the business card, almost silver in the light of the car.

I held it up to the light and saw my face again, behind that their face wide open, behind that the joyous pout, behind that a crane again.

Their palm thrust into my face again, this time I smell fields of green, red roses too.

I put the bracelet on my wrist, it fit perfectly. They with the hair bounced on their seat again before revving the engine, pulling the handbrake, slipping the clutch, spinning the wheels and pulling the Earth towards us.

Fast past everything, on the road side, nothing blurs, instead everything rapidly spins 180 degrees as you pass them, until it's a car wash made of buildings.

My door window creeps down and a Brazillian leans in, they are holding a rich velvet cloth and a small spray, they spray on my bracelet and then polish it. Polished to even more of a brown reflective silver than before, and yet I felt nothing, not a single tug or push on my wrist, as if no-one was there. I started to slowly move my arm up and down, but they kept polishing without a single aberration or impact on me. I started to flap my arms fast, as fast as the buildings spun, but the Brazilian tracked it perfectly, it's as if no-one was there. When they finished polishing they pushed off from the car and they peeled off down a side road on their skateboard.

We drove and drove, until there was nothing left to spin, until it was only dark fields in the twilight, until a glass steel building appeared over the horizon.

We stopped and immediately them with the hair clambered into the back, the chaffeur pouted into the driver seat, then they got out and opened the door for me and them with the big bronze hair.

As we neared and near the building the bronze hair started to tumble and trip, trip but never fall, trip and stumble purposefully and quickly. The chaffeurs hand on my back tipped me over until I could count gravel on the floor but my face never hit, I flew on my legs stumbling digging into the ground.

Them with the bronze hair hit the building glass, glass that reflected nothing but shined nevertheless. I followed into the glass and the glass didn't reflect me but bruised my rib nevertheless. The glass spun open, spun around until it hit me and the one with the bronze hair clear through. It flipped me facing back out back out to the fields, chaffeur with the handkerchief happy waving.

I saw nothing but ceiling, like a backstroke at the local pool, but the ceiling was nothing but pool and I was the ceiling.

I stopped moving but didn't feel such a distinction, in another car, the doors were all closed, the one with the bronze hair slumped over the steering wheel, the hair tenting over the wheel draining all over the dashboard.

Outside the car were other cars, nothing but cars, not like a showroom, no nothing like that. Why not like a showroom I don't know but not like a showroom.

We clamber out of that car and into another, a people carrier, the rear 4 seats folded flat, we sit cross legged across from each other, the smell of incense and cooked rice.

We clamber out of that car and into another, a sedan, a sports sedan, the one with the bronze hair grabs the oversized gear knob and wiggles it. Not sexually, no nothing like that. Why not sexually I don't know but not sexually.

We clamber out of that car and fall into a pickup truck, the cargo bed full of water, but not like a pool but like a bath, coconut and vanilla and petals of jasmine floating around.

We dive out of that car and into an executive sedan, with legroom longer than my bodyroom, the one with the bronze hair works on their laptop.

We fall out of that car into a compact car, seats reclined, curtains on the windows, and sleep.

The dream is one with theirs, we are wrestling in a cramped dimension of car seats, windows and dashboards, writhing in a neverending car interior that went in all directions, no part of our body that wasn't driving against pleather or alacantara or easy wash fabric or shatterproof glass or deformable glovebox doors. I feel wet blood and sweat and the hard chassis against me and them. The faster we wrestled and tumbled through the more every surface and feeling and impact merged into one. Until it blurred like hummingbird wings and all became dark because we leave light behind.

I wake up in a supercar, my hands on the wheel, the one with the bronze hair sat across staring at us staring at each other.

They say "Fast and go, so fast you stop. So stop that it's fast"

I didn't understand them, because there was nothing to understand. My mind didn't need to know what was true, it will be true regardless.

I started the car and stalled the engine immediately, possibly damaging the clutch, I was promptly escorted out of the property and walked 3 miles to the nearest petrol station and bought some de-icer.