2.

London has me trapped. The whole city is covered in snow. All the trains to Paris are cancelled and all the airports closed. I try in vain, along with 30,000 others, to crawl my way to France, but the snow keeps falling and it seems as though the whole city has shut down. Eventually I cut my losses and head back to safety at my friends house, where we sit online for hours searching for an answer. Train to Dover, ferry to Calais, train from Calais to Paris. The red wine starts to flow. Outside it's a Winter Wonderland of snowmen and snow fights and children playing in the middle of major roads. Everyone has surrendered. And those who haven't rush for the warmth and close the hatches. I put clean socks on and kick back relak. It's going to be a slow, lazy night, this last night in London.

That's when she appears. Red dot. Bottom corner.

Matty.

I smile. It's rare this voice, but it's never changed. Last I heard she had flown to a new life in L.A. A designer now. In vogue and in Vogue. But the memories of us have never died, and on a night like this in London, everybody needs a little warmth.

Hello You, I type.

And -

London is covered in snow! It's amazing!

She replies - How do you know? And I say, Because I'm in it!

There is a pause.

Then -

Where?

Hackney! I type and wait...

WTF? I'm in Hackney! That's my hood!

Get out of town...you moved to L.A.???

No! I didn't end up going! I've been in Hackney for six years!

We keep talking and there's an urgency now. We are ten minutes from each other and it's my last night in London and there is 6 years to discover and nothing has changed, and nothing was lost, and our lives, our distant lives which crossed so many times with no result, until on a magical night in London, Mistress Fate opens the door again, and dares us to step through.

I have forgotten, but not forgotten.
I have remembered,
all this time,
to remember.

As has she. And her subtle smile as she opens her door brings us closer than ever before as I stand shivering in the snow outside her house.

"Watch your step," I say, "it's slippery out here..."

We climb into the back of the taxi and laugh, but it's not a madness this laugh. It's a softness. A wonder. And it's not until we are hidden in the dark corner of the bar that we truly shake our heads at all that had conspired to birth this moment. She talks of her year and I talk of mine and the patterns and the dates and the Hopes and the fantasies all fit like the clasped hands of old lovers as we sip our gingerbread drinks, completely unaware of the festive drunks around us. And I won't lie, I drink in every moment with her, and I'd close my eyes just to hear her voice, but I can not for fear of her not being there when I open them again. And I never thought I'd actually live the sentence that she says, "of all the people, in all the places, it had to be You that came into my Life tonight..."

I fall in Love. I do. I am not ashamed, here in Hell, to admit it. I fall deeply, madly, passionately in Love with this person who I have known for ten years, and who has never completely disappeared, though we have never been together. Hours fly by, firstly sharing secrets of the past, before moving on to Dreams of Tomorrow TM. It's Us, it's really Us, on the other side of the World, in exactly the same place, leading completely different lives.

What a fucking Head Fuck.

Some friends of hers are close by and we join them, just to find more time in this limited night. We are whisked away to Shoreditch, a Member's Only club, where Rockstars rub shoulders with Media Gurus and the Class System is in Full Effect. A heated pool on the roof top, surrounded by snow and glamour and martinis and cigarettes, whilst downstairs lavish restaurants and velvet cushions sate every desire of those who desire this. But we don't. We simply laugh at it all, and our every word hangs upon the wire which delicately binds us together until we can take no more of this foolish facade, this Tight Knit London which is worn by only the priveleged few. So we run for it, out the door and into the night, into a taxi, and into the Light.

And some things never leave. And I learn of Truth and Tenderness, Fate, Love and Patience, on a dark and frozen morning, in My London.

I leave the next morning. We look at each other in our silly thermals and giggle self conciously but there is no hiding the comfort we feel in front of each other. And there is a moment, My Moment, when I descend the stairs and she doesn't see me, and I stand quietly watching her as she stares out the back window, leaning gently on the wall and I don't wonder what she is thinking, I wonder that she exists at all. This...this Her. Wrapped in English wool and blowing softly on the cup she nestles absent mindedly.

We have breakfast, slowly, and she escorts me to my train without a word of hesitation and neither of us can leave the other, or bear to end this This.

I kiss her as I climb aboard the train, and she says, "Au Revoir, my Pop Up Boy."

And later that day as the White Cliffs of Dover fade into the the sunset, I hide in my iPod and listen to Songs Ohia as my heart tries to drag England with me to France.

We get no second chance in this life.

You won't have to think twice, if it's Love you will know.

Do we want to know?

I don't know.

But there is so much more...