I felt like I was walking on a cloud. Or through a cloud. 200mg will do that. Daytime indulgence, but walking uncertain. I asked myself why I rolled this way at my age. Because I did not give a fuck anymore? But when did I ever give a fuck? You have to look at yourself in a storefront window and know that the dressmaker’s dummy looming behind your reflection means that you’ve stopped at couturier or a seamstress joint and look like shit not because of it. A woman wearing a short beaded black coat and walking with her arms tightly bundled around her looked at my shoes as she passed me and I felt compelled to also look at them. Strangely, I had worn two different shoes. Both were black, but the right was an Oxford and the left a loafer. This had never happened before. I moved on. My direction meant nothing as no destination formed in my mind so that I could guide my body to it. I began to think about my gait. My left leg felt longer than the right and thus I moved with a tilt. Then I realized that the Oxford’s more substantial heel explained it, the loafer lacking in that regard. The sky looked as blue as a painted sky, thick brushstrokes evident, a fuzzy cloud in the east roaming like a nebulous rogue. The neighbourhood radiated with alien energy, by which I mean unfamiliar to me and strangely vibrating. People on the street appeared made of papier-mâché though I could not get close enough to them to verify this or discover why they looked so odd, so fucked up. Every time I approached one of these people, they crossed the street, or ducked into a shop or house. They all walked oddly, as well, like their shoes had been tied together. I passed one man who performed a sluggish pirouette when I tried to catch a good look at his face. “Hey you!” I yelled at him. “Hey!” He ignored me and tottered away. The city had changed a lot since I first moved there twenty years ago. Had I changed? Of course I had changed. I had lost my freshness. I had lost my freshness after ten years. But after another ten years I had lost something else. Perhaps I was looking for that lost thing. Or perhaps I did not care one way or the other. Sirens cut through the fog. Engines roared. A woman screamed. A papier-mâché child in blue gingham approached me. “Sir,” the child said, the face poorly layered, the right eye higher than the left, the lips off, the nose showing newsprint—“Sir, why are you wearing two different shoes?” I had to sit down. I found a boarded up storefront and sat on the front step. “Are you okay, sir? the child asked. I untied the brogue and pulled it off my foot. Then I slipped off the loafer. “Your socks match,” the child said, and moved on. 

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