When it was all over, she threw a blanket around herself and sat on the stool by the window, looking out at the abandoned scraps of the junkyard as the sun was swallowed by the horizon and the eerie light of dusk crept slowly across the city. A cold draft blew in from the window and found its way beneath the blanket across her naked skin. Her legs were crossed and her elbows were pressed close against her side as she leaned over the window sill. Her hair dried slowly, and the water dripped onto the blanket and into a small puddle that formed on the floor.
The junkyard grew darker even as she looked on. It seemed as if every time she blinked the world grew a little darker, and the night a little colder. Yet inside her grey wool blanket she was not cold.
It was an army blanket, with a nylon lining at the edges. It was double layered, with insulation inside. If she paid attention, she would have noticed that the coarse fiber itched her skin, but her body did not interest her now, she was mesmerized by this final kiss of the day and the night that is called dusk, or twilight.
She thought of the day and the night as two lovers, forever unable to meet, except for a moment twice a day, a moment that seemed to last an eternity, when these two could express all that they meant to each other. And yet, as beautiful as it was, it was also sad, and a tear streamed slowly down this child’s face, floating softly on such supple skin, tracing the curve of a cheek that no hand had traced, joining the droplets of water that fell from her hair, the remnants of an action that seemed already an eternity away, as if a lifetime separated this moment from that one. And indeed a lifetime did separate these two moments, a lifetime that contained the entire nature of her childhood. A childhood that was bittersweet, and would soon be only bitter, like the faces of the old men that remembered an age forgotten.
Without a word she threw the blanket off of her, and leaned against the window, pressing her forehead against the cold glass. Her naked body was no longer wet, but she still felt a chill as the wind scraped against her skin, whispering to her in the darkness.
She thought of Julian.