Leaving New York

Sunday. Slip quietly back into the city then straight back out to JFK.
I get the seat next to the craziest person on the plane.
A tiny woman who radiates stress, screams a lot into her phone before we take off.
"just listen to me, im tellin ya you don't have a fucking ulcer"
The plane banks softly left and the city swells up beneath the wing. Incredible sea of light that stretches all the way to the enchanted blue dusk horizon.
The crazy woman is saying something trying to pull me into her madness.
We will have 7 hours together
I tell her in french that i dont speak english and pull the drawstrings to close my hood and i am gone.

Macedonia Brook State Park, Connecticut

I go to Grand Central.
After all these years i take my first train to leave New York.
I go to Plamens' house far upstate, the train smells of escape.

The train stops at the end of the line. The night is black and icey, not sure what to think as the taxi weaves through darklands.

But the next day I realise I have accidentally come somewhere extraordinary.

Time Square, NYC

Finish another meeting.
Time square is all blade runner electric.
Night falling, getting colder, getting tired of all the running around.

Diner west 43rd street, NYC

Waiting for a meeting with the Mother agency across the road in a fantastic diner.
All the staff look like friendly gangsters.
Their hair swept up in greasy quiffs, reminds me of photos I saw of my father when he was much younger than me.

La grande Roue, 1ere

I help the school on a surprise outing.
We will ride the giant ferris wheel.
We will see out across all of paris.

The Tuilleries is winter frozen empty and beautiful. It is still too early for tourists we break the calm with our screaming horde.

Now all the children are waiting directly under the wheel but they don't yet know that this is the surprise. They start to vibrate with excitement. A hundred heated disputes break out, predictions, devinations offered and rejected.

And then like a magician their mistress reveals the magic tickets.