We had dinner, which did not burn a hole in our collective pockets for a change, and then, we lay on the grass talking about all things in the world, but mostly books. A friend asked, as friends often do if I could name my favourite one of all time. I dodged the question like you often dodge an inquiry for favourites, not because there is no answer but because there are many. Then, I told him the truth and asked if he had read Le Petit Prince. He had not. Then, I noticed that despite the light all around us from balconies in the hundreds of apartments and lampposts around, I could see a sole star in the sky, and for a second, I lost my train of thought. Once I found myself back in the land of the living and out of the abrupt delirium, I told my friend he should read it. Then, for a few minutes, I listed books and why I loved them. And among them, there were so many, and it was such a diverse list, I felt somewhat proud of myself for having grown the way I did, for living a life that had led me precisely to that minute on the grass.
And it could have been more diverse, but you see, you talk to people where they are, you meet them in those places, and you often leave them there. My friend, you see, does not enjoy fiction or books where there is more between the lines, and that is fair, of course, not everyone needs to be the daydreamer sort. I gladly take it upon myself to shoulder that responsibility, so as diverse a list as the one I gave him, it could have been more varied had I found it in myself to include fiction or philosophy or anything that did not spell things out for you.
Regardless, it was a satisfactory answer, for we stopped talking about books and spoke about other things as we all walked around. But it stayed with me, the night sky, the moment with no start and end, that I was lying on the grass in another city, that at some point in the last months, a voice in my heart asked me to leave, and that I said I was going to do it, and then, I left.
How wonderful it is that nothing is as permanent as we think it is at first, and how curious it is that when we think of things at first, it never occurs to us that they can change?
And then, they do.