out there & in here

It was a blistery, bastard of an evening, and we were on the outside looking in. A long street, with windows nipped by snarling cold. Faint glimmers of light streaked out onto the street as shadows danced in front of it. Tungsten & Incandescent. 

Two houses with lights on. Shadows moving around inside. Animation. 

The first was ornate. People positioned perfectly. Gathered around a glowing box watching it. Small glowing boxes danced around their visages. Noise came from everywhere & sounds were trampled. The decor is sparse and the people too. The smell of eighty dollar candles marked down to forty wafted about, colonising the space above the IKEA vase & phoney flowers, settling behind the credenza and hiding around the hutch. There was a package on their doorstep.  Smoke escaped through the top of it. A pimply plump boy put it there as ordered by an app. He was very hungry.

The second was cramped. It was loud, it was conversational. It was smelly, but it smelt homely. It looked homely. People moved and swayed and got up and got down. The tv was on but people spoke, people yelled and people laughed. Food was passed around and was dropped. They shared everything. It was love.