How do I know they are hungry? But I don't. Their hairy necks curve away in denial, they will not show their faces. Not for me. An outsider I try to find meaning in coarse fabric and messy hair. Not caring flows in both directions. Her I can see. She looks worried. Her eyes are alert and averted from me. What is that thing that makes us see and realize: alive?
I don't know the distance between us exactly. There is time, in any case a lot of time. Decades, when only moments would be enough to separate us for ever - the way they separate you and me, me and you. The universe will not fold for us. Maybe it will, who knows. This is not the hope that keeps me afloat.
There is a length of journey as well, from one continent to another. The distance of half my foot, shorter than you would think. I come and go, and when I see you, or her, I think of aliveness. The look in the eyes, the breath, the bets we place on past and future.
I know you, still I know you as little as I know her, the stranger. To cover the distance between us is as impossible as it is to travel through time. Still I am inching through the time. I am slowly covering the distance. I am alive until I am no more, for this I have hunger.