slender

bright noodle shop; yellow ski jacket man and long black stockings girl pass each other, spotlights on menu, now, almost midnight; couple pays for desserts, leaves bowls for old motherly server to collect; owner about to pull the barricade half-way down; some lights switching off at the sushi joint; middle-age folks saunter slowly across; a young woman, burdened by a big black shoulder bag with another black canvas sack dangling off her elbow, has her other arm clinging to what can only be a boyfriend; a team of parents with two tall sporty zip-up sons stand outside the noodle shop as bright lights set ablaze angular arrogant juvenile features. Black garbage bag sits on the sidewalk, something senile. Round puffy black jacket man blows smoke toward the window of a parked white mercedes.