XENE

IV

Bienvenue au Vieux-Port de Montréal. I saluted the John Young Monument, and continued to where I watched the sunrise seven years ago. This time, I was not alone. A pale blue dress, hazel eyes, the love of my dreams. Musing on the brink of revelation, night on the cusp of dawn — the silence broke.

"Hello, dear stranger. Do you love the sunrise?"

I knew not, no more than I may ever know the world of the distant past, the place I put away and left to die—yet the ripple of her skirt spurred me: "Sorry for asking out of the blue, but..."

"Out of the blue," she repeated. "I look best in blue. What do you think?"

Tension gave way to disappointment. "Seven years ago, we danced on a ship."

"Maybe," she said, "but not as far as I know."

"Shouldn't you know for sure?"

"I suppose one is expected to know their past." With a rose-fingered hand, she traced the line dividing water and sky. "I love the sunrise. Don't you?"

The cloudy summer sunrise, off a few degrees in angle and heat from seven years ago, stirred nothing. "There's nothing to love about the sunrise."

"I see," she said. "Do you mind waiting?"

For more or less two minutes, I smoked and looked at patches of rust on the railing, buildings in the distance, light peeking through clouds, the beautiful stranger watching the sunrise. Inhale, hold, exhale.