We are friends

Dubai and I have a love-hate relationship.
For the moment, we love each other.

Today the silver steel and crane city offers itself to me unreservedly.

Although it is winter.

Perhaps it wants my warmth?

No matter. This season I will share my glow with it; we are good friends after all.

(And what is a good friendship if not a tumultuous and sometimes brutal one?)


We share our stories - drenched in shisha scent (apple and mint) - with mutual friends, who sit bathed in burnt orange light; mannequins of Creek Side.


We bite down on chunks of bread smoothed with butter that boasts a texture even icing sugar would envy.


We watch the cable cars dangle - high above the stretching, reaching, yearning green of Creek Park - like Chinese lanterns celebrating something we don't quite get. (And we all wonder, secretly, what the cable car travellers are thinking; the photos they are taking; the jokes they are telling.)


Fresh pineapple juice burns my throat.


A duck dives down into the water a few feet away; silver head sinking into crushed velvet water the colour of black jaguars in jungles I might never see.

I am the only one (on the entire planet) who saw it go under.

Is that beautiful?

Meaningful?

I believe so.


We shiver.


The cold light of evening creeps along our arms; kisses our cheeks.


I did not bring a cardigan. (Such a funny word: cardigan. I like it.)


Our laughter trickles down my spine like syrup.


I remember that the winter is always good to me here.


It makes me smile; its wicked baby whirlwinds tossing leaves into galaxy shapes.


I love its cooling waters lapping the shore like a thirsty transparent tongue; burnt orange skies, egotistical buildings standing proud on the skyline; fresh fish's cooked flesh like fluffy clouds floating on my plate; quieter sounds that drift lie feathers; silhouettes of birds (we like to think they're bats); loving glance from Aman (sideways and down his nose; a sunbeam through the roof).

 Yes.

Dubai and I are friends.

Today the silver steel and crane city offers itself to me unreservedly.

And I offer it my warmth.