„Nuchi…“

„Okay“ Nuchi throws the cigarette out of the window, takes back his patch patch, rolls through his contacts, and then holds it to his ear.

„It is ringing.. just wait for whatever it is you are after, okay? „Eve, Hi it’s Nuchi. Look, please excuse me. Were you up? Look…“

But he doesn’t finish because the newcomer has his left hand folded around the glossy black stub of technology. He then slowly takes it from Nuchi as if it is a loaded gun and they were actors in some partisan-era thriller.

“Ieva?” he asks, lingering on her name. “Iev - it’s me, Ieva, listen. I’m coming… I’ll be there soon.”

There’s a pause, which he ends softly, “Eve, sunbeam, Ieva. Understand me, I’m begging you. Eve, I’m after, I’m after… fuck it, Ieva, … I’m after paradise.”

He begs her to wait for him, and then she hangs up.

We stop at the crossroads at the end of town.

“Where to?” I ask.

He hugs himself tight, and kicks out at the underside of the dashboard.

“Where to?” he mumbles copying my faux business-like manner, “fucking whores, you don’t understand – you just, fuck the whore, you just sit there. I’m after paradise, and you just sit there.”

He falls into silence - the back of his neck stretched forward and his chin resting close to his chest. I turn right, and we drive on to the river, the darkness spreading with the evening, tightening my vision ever closer around the beams of the transit’s headlights.