I tell Darren I love him, and he just looks at me. I’ve told him this in French and in English for more than 30 years, but he still looks at me, and then he vanishes and I’m standing in a phone booth in Geneva, or talking to the manager of a hotel, and looking through a yellow phone book (yes I know this is oldschool and oldtime), and then I’m in a restaurant where they serve raclette
still looking for Darren. In the rest of the sequence i can’t find him, but I know he’s somewhere in the city and for crying out loud it’s a small city, filled with diplomats and rich emigres from 3rd word countries and Germans of course, and everyone is happy to be in the home of chocolate and cukoo clocks, but there is this matter of finding Darren, which is certainly not a French name, but Darren is Suisse Romand, which means he speaks French and he is a tall drink of water as they often are, and I really really love him, but he just looks at me whenever I say that, and so I walk the misty streets at night, which in its own way is cool, because this is a city where I can walk around all night by myself. It’s safe. Safe but lonely. Sometimes, like right now, being safe is enough.
Stephanie Barbé Hammer Writing (Un) Real 
another gem!…just wondering though…did you mean “cuckoo” clock?…and was “3rd word” an intentional pun or just a typo?…your admirer and former speller-goddess
thanks madame. You know, I couldn’t for the life of me remember how to spell “cuckoo.” “Third word” started as a mistake, but I liked it so it’s not — at this point — a typo. Thanks for keeping me on the straight and narrow — grammar-wise, if not other-wise!