As the sun finally burrows its way into bed, you leave Ji-eun's apartment, finding the empty street outside lost in mist. You know your way back home but you don't take it. Throughout the city you find velvet gardens draped in the colors of nearby shop windows and cafes. The tender stare of a stranger, their face illuminated by phone light from below and street lamps from above. The steps you take start to melt into one another, softly being enveloped by some unknown force that carries you forward. The night blooms further, the light becomes more and more neon. The skyline turns obsidian and the same old doubts replay in your head. But the momentum of something greater than yourself pushes you forward. Into and then back out of the lights of different entrances, effecting your egress into the night over and over again. You lose track of time, slipping into ash filled streets farther from the center of the city. Outskirts where all color has been lost save for the silver rain of moonlight. An empty palette, a lake of mercury and ash, obsidian and velvet. Would any life have been lived the same as yours, City Girl?