Alibi

The young woman with the fire torches swirls around the square, her arms hypnotic, her long, luminous hair only ever so slightly teasing the flames.

Next to her, a boy of about fifteen is walking around on his hands, his legs twisting and twirling in the air to a rhythm only he can hear.

A twenty-something with short hair and long legs covered with tattoos hurtles past them on rollerblades, dancing on the speed they generate.

No one gets bumped into, kicked, or burnt.

There are many other artists there, on this square by the ocean, each more enthralling than the other, each more beautiful than the other.

All of them uncannily skilful at avoiding each other.

I place myself there, where no one will notice me. I am in the midst of it all, under this metallic summer sky, remembering my story. I light a cigarette, but I won't burn anyone. My pain won't disrupt the harmony of the beauty woven around me.

My story won't change the world.

It's just for me, and me alone.

#1 Nightscape

That night, I was walking down North Street.

I was going home, the night soft and quiet around me with the sounds muffled to a hush; one foot in front of the other, following the line in the middle of the street, my long skirt brushing my ankles.

I wasn't worried about traffic. The city was all mine.

I was looking for you, and I knew where to find you. Reliably, you jumped out from the second street on the left, going home after a night out. We almost bumped into one another, and I acted surprised.

"Hey!" you said, your voice the right side of tipsy.

Hey, I replied.

You looked stunning, but I didn't tell you. You had on that black shirt that I saw you wearing once, and your hair was scruffy, one lock brushing your face.

I’m going home, I said. Where are you going?

"Going home, too," you said.

I nodded and said I was going that way, you said you were going that way, too. And so we walked away together, and I was shivering, walking by your side.

You looked at the outline of the buildings brushing the stars, and then at your watch. "It's early," you said. "Fancy a drink?"

I nodded, and we went off trying to find somewhere to have a drink, but everything was closed. We tried and tried, and then you noticed how quiet everything was.

"There's no one on the streets," you said.

I know, I said.

I couldn't tell you why, so I just said it was beautiful when the night was so quiet. But I didn't want you to go home, so I suggested the beach – something was bound to be open there, somewhere we could sit down and have a drink. And if not, we could try again another time. You smiled and agreed, and we walked off, and I was shivering so much that you thought I was cold and offered me your jacket. When we got to the beach, no one was there. Not even the moon – it was a starry night, dark and deep. We took a few steps on the pebbles, and that's when you held my hand.

I let you.

And we stood there, looking out in front of us, for a good, interminable minute, before I said: "Do you still want to look for a pub?"

You laughed and you lowered your head as if I had caught you doing something you were not supposed to. You shook your head, and then you looked at me.

"Unless you want to do that."

I shook my head, too. And then I finally found the courage to look at you. With your jacket on I had no excuse anymore for shivering, but I was still shaking like a leaf. I think by then you knew why.

We may have spent an eternity in that position. But at some point, you came closer, and I put my arms around your neck and played with your hair. I remember then the feel of your arms around my back, and you pulling me closer.

It was one of those rare moments for which the concept of mindfulness makes sense: one of those rare moments that are worth being completely present for. Those moments that go too quickly; the moments we end up missing.

Then you kissed me.

Your lips on mine; that's where I draw the line.

I lingered for a moment, and then she called me.

#2 Hellscape

"What's his name again?" she asked.

I shook my head. Had I been daydreaming again?

Yes, she said.

She was gorgeous – a waterfall of waves with an unfathomable abyss in her eyes.

"Are you daydreaming again?" she laughed. "You had those eyes, glazed over and distant. I could see you from the stage."

"I am so sorry," I said.

"Don't be. I would get offended if I didn't know any better. But yours wasn't boredom. You know what I mean – those eyes strained with the effort of looking inside, ignoring the immediacy of the real world," she said. "You were somewhere else. You have the alibi."

She ordered drinks, and an Angelo Azzurro quickly appeared in front of each of us, the cobalt blue of the glass almost fluorescent in the burgundy penumbra of the bar.

"It means elsewhere in Latin, doesn't it?"

"You came prepared," she said, impressed.

"You told me this before. And you also told me about Maladaptive Daydreaming Disorder."

"I did," she said. "I don't think you have it. I just thought it's a fancy name for daydreaming – but what do I know, I am just a singer."

"Why do you think I don't have it?"

"Because it's not just in your mind. You feel things as well, don't you?"

To exemplify what she meant, you came into shot. You had your favourite black T-shirt and your scruffy hair, your skin velvety in the mellow light. I stopped breathing there and then.

"You don't need to breathe, anyway," she said. And then she added, "Look, how does that feel now?"

And I looked at you again. Only you weren't alone anymore. She was there, and you were holding her so tight that I could have thrown my glass at you and it would have bounced back.

The singer was looking at me with studious interest and without the slightest trace of empathy.

"How does that feel?" she asked, again.

How did that feel? My eyes were bubbling lava puddles and my chest had become the end point of the conveyor belt at a knife factory.

I ran off to the bathroom and cried my eyes out in one of the stalls. When it felt safer to come out, I unlocked the door and bolted out towards the bar.

You were there, but this time you were alone. Your hair was in a ponytail and you had a packet of cigarettes in your hands. You smiled at me, that coy smile that messed me up from the first time I met you, and you handed me a cigarette. I followed you like Alice with the white rabbit, only to find myself in the bathroom again.

There I was, standing in front of the mirror, with the gorgeous singer by my side.

"The smoker again, hey?"

I nodded, then I looked at myself in the mirror. My make-up had melted in my tears, leaving my face streaked with perfectly thin black vertical bars. The singer was holding her phone up to me.

"You don't have Maladaptive Daydreaming Disorder. You are lovesick. You have the alibi," she said, looking at me with unspeakable sadness.

"Are you taking a photo?"

"No, I am just scanning your face," she said.

She clicked on something on her phone, and the bar exploded.

We were running away at an unknown speed, deep in the first instants after the explosion, when time stands still.

The singer was holding my hand and dragging me through a cloud of shrapnel, concrete, cocktail glasses, chairs, musical notes, kisses, wise words, tears, and fire torches.

Little bits of the city were scattered above us, waiting to land and crush us.

Then it all stopped.

Everything crashed to the ground in a loud sigh.

The city fell silent again.

The sky was pitch black. We were alone among the rubble.

"What happened?"

"Look," she said.

There you were, holding hands with a bride. "Who?" I heard you say, your voice all carelessness and pity. And you and your bride laughed, your glances burning a hole in my skin as you passed by, disappearing into the darkness.

I ran away, stumbling on the hot ashes on the street.

I lost the singer. I ran until I reached a park, an urban concoction of greenery and graffiti that, for a sweet second, soothed my soul.

I sat on a bench to gather my thoughts, but I couldn't sit still, so I kept running. I passed all the places I knew in the other life – those streets where I would normally go to get a coffee, or see on my morning run, were all in ruins.

North Laine was a smouldering heap of rubble. I ran towards the sea, where the pier was sinking into the waves like its West twin. Shards of wood were stabbing the shoreline, and a flock of flickering lights, chaotic Chinese lanterns, were cluttering the sea and dying slowly one by one.

The beach was deserted. Igloos that used to shelter convivial nights were blown about in the wind, landing upside down on the pebbles. Bits and pieces of torn fabric, perhaps remains of a shredded marquee, were rolling about in the air like confetti. No trace of you, of our imagined connection, of our kiss, could be detected anywhere.

The night spoke only of loss.

I went to look for the singer. The Lanes were drowning in debris and fluctuating string lights. Only one shop was still standing. Inside it, almost everything was crushed and ground. A lonely screen on a wall was flashing, surrounded by spikes of glittering glass. I looked in. On the screen, an image took shape, then vanished, then came back again; it was your face, smiling. As the image stabilised, you looked around the room. Then you saw me.

You turned towards me, your eyes appearing and disappearing from the screen. I sleepwalked into the shop, oblivious to the ceiling brushing my head, to the glass beneath my feet.

When I got to the screen, I looked up. You looked down at me.

For a moment, you stood still and just looked at me. And I looked into your eyes, mesmerized, until I felt like drowning. I gasped for air.

Suddenly, a whole row of screens lit up on my right-hand side. On them, your face was refracted into a thousand faces, all looking at me. Immovable one moment, the next they all laughed in unison while you kept looking at me benignly from the big screen. As all the faces roared with laughter, the room started shaking, throwing blades of glass at me. I ran out of the store just before everything fell down. Your laughter kept echoing through the night as I ran away.

"Leave me alone!" I screamed. "Leave me alone!"

When I got back to North Street, I sat down where I was and cried.

And in that moment, I confess, I felt more alive than ever.

Or if not alive, at least real.

There wasn't anywhere else I’d rather be, but on that raw street, crying.

But the singer reappeared. I heard her footsteps approaching, her hair swinging around her. "It's getting worse," she said. "I am so sorry."

I nodded. It was getting worse.

"The hellscape is getting bigger and better serviced," she said. "I am sorry."

I cried some more, then she took pity on me.

"You need to go," she said. "Now. Get back to your life."

"I'd rather stay here."

She looked at me again with the same unspeakable sadness. "You'd rather stay here. I know. But you shouldn't."

I cried again.

"I can do something for you," she said, in the end. "But it’s the last time."

She peeled off a layer of street, and a staircase appeared. She gestured for me to go. I hugged her, then left.

As I descended, one step after the other, my high-heeled shoes appeared. And then my leggings. And then my dress.

And I found myself at Komedia. The night I realised I love you.

#3 Escape

Once upon a time, I was hiking in Australia. It was a crisp, clear autumn day with a hint of cold in the air. We were walking through a lush rainforest, a kaleidoscope of green, when we saw the ocean shimmer on our right. We rushed towards it and we found ourselves on a sickle-shaped bay with sugary sands melting in the clearest blue I had ever seen.

It was cold enough for us to wear jumpers, but I got out of mine at the speed of light. The cold air hit me all of a sudden, and with it the realisation that I was also scared of the marine life in Australia. It was a borderline irrational phobia. I briefly pondered my concerns – it may be freezing in the water, or maybe I’d be eaten by a shark – and decided I didn’t care: I had to swim in that beauty.

And so I did. I ignored the cold and the fear and lost myself in the view from the water.

That episode came back to me the night I was meant to meet you and my friend at Komedia for a movie. I knew I shouldn't have seen you again. And still, the way I reacted to that dreamy bay is the way I live my life sometimes.

I don't remember much of that night. Just a few brush strokes: the stuff I was wearing; the string lights in North Laine; my rare happiness in the bathroom mirror; and your quiet smile telling me it would all end in tears.

Then, going home alone, I saw us crossing the road, just in front of the Waggon and Horses. You had your arm around my neck and I had mine around your waist. We were laughing. You kissed my head as we crossed the road, burying your face in my hair. I turned and kissed you.

We weren't looking at the road. No need. Who would have run over a couple like that? You know when you are happy, a specific kind of happy, you also feel invincible? That couple who crossed the road had everyone fooled, including me. We could have crossed the road with our eyes closed and it wouldn't have mattered.

The image walked away, blending into the night. And I was alone again.

#4 Seascape

The day after the day the alibi started, I was on the beach just in front of the West Pier. The fog coming from the sea had engulfed everything a few feet from the shore; the waves gently lapping the pebbles were the only tangible proof of the ocean's existence. I was sitting close to the waves, sitting so still that some snoozy baby seagulls had come to sleep around me.

I was letting the sea and the fog soothe me, and the tears were flowing. Sometimes you just have to go and cry your eyes out by the sea, that's one of the truths I live by. And I needed it that day: you know those moments when you realise that the life you lived was not the one you wanted? Of course you know, you are human.

Well, that day, that feeling – which was always humming in the back of my mind's orchestra – came out and decided to do a powerful solo. The trigger? You.

Or, to be fair, the miserable state of chaos I was in after having seen you the night before. I had tried with my whole self to just be friendly, treat you with cool detachment and laugh it all off, but maintaining that I wasn't in love with you would have been ridiculous pettiness. And there was nothing I could do. Nothing I could have done would have changed the state of affairs: I was in love with you, and you probably weren't.

And so I was there on that beach, crying my eyes out, when you saw me. I heard your step on the pebbles coming closer, and I turned to see you, your expression changing from serene to worried as you saw my face.

"What's going on?" you asked.

Suddenly, I couldn't see your face anymore. The fog had eaten you up, and I could only hear your voice, faintly.

"Nothing," I said. "Sometimes you just have to go and cry your eyes out by the sea," I added.

I always had some lines prepared. That was one of the things I would have told you if you had ever spotted me crying by the sea.

#5 Dreamscape

These are not mere reveries. They are the results of a technique that I perfected over the years. Have you ever watched the Black Mirror episode titled “The Entire History of You”? Imagine the alibi as a low-fi version of that. The glazed-over eyes are exactly the same, but the rest is totally different. Instead of a faithful rendition of the past, scrutinisable and zoomable, you have a chaotic rat trap for memories cobbled together with nothing more than longing and desperation.

I am addicted to memories.

I try to recreate those scenarios that are real – for example, the time I bumped into you on my way home – in my mind, and they become a skilfully arranged theatre set. Build it and they will come; it's true: once I built those frames, the memories of you came crashing in.

Your voice, for example. The precise tone and depth of it. It doesn't stay long that clear in my mind before being obfuscated by some other memory. But even that much is enough for a high.

Indulging in the high that those memories bring has a price: the horror that comes when I realise they are just memories, just fiction. That's when the city shreds itself to pieces; that's when I walk in the hellscape. But I’d still stay there, in those strange places where my pain takes me, rather than seeking safety elsewhere. Away from those places, no moment seems to be worth being mindful for.

Be kind to daydreamers – those who miss their bus stops, those who ask you to repeat something you just said. You don't know what hellscape they are walking through. Offer them an Angelo Azzurro, or whatever ethereal globe of euphoria is most appropriate; at least, remind them they are not alone.