Ron went on a walk the night before the first night of summer.  He crossed the bridge that spanned over to the neighboring neighborhood.  It was about nine thirty at night, and completely dark, but he still felt a glow from the porch lights of the houses and the lights that overlooked the grass of the park.  Ron was alone, he was listening to his IPod until he crossed over the bridge, then he took off his headphones and put them in his pocket.  He liked to go for walks to the park and sit on the monkey bars and people watch.  Sometimes he brought Twizzlers and a bottle of strawberry milk with him.  Often after class at the local community college he would take a different route home to this spot, clutch on to the third orange bar closest to the slide, and swing himself up so that his knees were clasped onto the fifth bar.  From that point he climbed his way up above the bars, pulled his snack out of his backpack, and felt the cool breeze of the spring hold on to him.

He hadn’t been to his spot since school ended.  He went that night instead of during the day to see what people he could spot from a different perspective, that of circling the park instead of sitting in the middle of it.  He didn’t bring a snack; he didn’t bring anything, just his IPod and his keys.

The path of the park started a block away from an intersection that met at the end of the bridge.  Walking along the park path, on one side Ron could see the green grass and trees, on the other, the houses of the neighborhood.  It was windy out, so the trees that stood in front of the houses like guards swayed with the wind.  Ron chose to walk on the house-lined side of the street.  The moon was abnormally big that night, it was yellow and he could see the craters so much that he spun his fingers around the ring of his IPod just to match the sensation. 

Ron was about to cross the street when someone turned from the left off of the oncoming block.  This was the first person he would see from his people-watching excursion of the night, and he realized then and there that the person would see him, too, so he picked up his shoulders a bit.  When he could see the person through the darkness, he saw that it was a guy, an older guy with some grey hair, wearing jeans and a fleece jacket.  His hands were in his pockets, and through the darkness Ron saw that he was looking to someone next to him, talking to her, a person about his age, in the same kind of clothing.  They were a completely stereotypical couple of people, walking at a normal, leisurely pace, but the air of the two intrigued Ron.  It was like they were the happiest people in the world, and they could turn around to him and strike up a conversation in the easiest, most simple way.

A block later, the couple made a left and Ron was alone again.  At this point he had the option of crossing the street and following a path that ran along a large green field that looked empty, except for an image of a person deep in the horizon.  The figure walked forward in a rugged, determined manner, and curiosity got the best of Ron, so he crossed the street and trekked parallel to the grass that he could almost decipher as green in the moonlight.  Ron walked further, as the figure did towards him, and Ron could see that it was a man, who was taller than him, with dark, shaggy hair, wearing raggedy clothes, and dress shoes that he knew probably didn’t shine.  The man didn’t look like he belonged there.  He looked like he belonged somewhere else, but his expression didn’t show it.  The man looked Ron right in the eyes and gave him a wide smile, his feet stretching over the rough patches on the field.  The man’s eyes were the brightest that Ron had ever seen, although he didn't see any light reflecting in them.  Ron half expected the man to stop and say something to him, but the two passed each other, like a meteor just missing a planet.  Ron kept walking and didn’t look back.

Ron walked to the end of the field and came to a three- street intersection.  Without looking to the street signs, he blindly chose a street, crossed, and was on a sidewalk next to a block of houses again.  The street was wide, and cars lined both sides.  Most of the porch lights were off, and only one street lamp dotted each corner block.  He walked for ten or fifteen minutes, without seeing any people, so he decided to turn around and go home, until his eyes met a huge ball of energy that was rolling down the other side of the street, more or less twenty feet ahead of him.  The difference between the serenity of the environment and the person that he saw startled Ron.  He continued to walk normally, so as to not draw attention.  Ron squinted his eyes to see who it was that was walking with such force, with such animosity, and he couldn’t recognize the person.  All he knew was that it looked to be a boy around his age, someone that obviously had something on his mind that he wasn’t happy about, something that he couldn’t shake off.  The guy walked forward with a heavy pace, and Ron felt that he had never seen anyone exert such momentum just from walking.  Ron wanted to know at that moment: had the guy just gotten into a fight? What went wrong?  Was he angry? He must be angry, Ron thought.  The space that was between Ron and the guy was the biggest boundary Ron had ever felt between himself and another person.  That is the last person I want to see tonight, Ron decided.  Time to go home.

Ron backtracked until he was a block before the intersection at the bridge.  He thought of the events and the people of the night.  He felt that even though he was a stranger to the neighborhood, in a way; it had treated him well, as it always had.  If he had walked around, or found a place to sit, in his own neighborhood, then people would have treated him differently, like they knew him, with unquestionable, unconditional kindness.  Ron liked to see how people were on their own terms, without anything, or anyone, to mediate.

He was about to pull out his IPod at the corner by the bridge, when he saw her, under the streetlight.  She was short, about five-four, had short, dark, curly hair, and wore jeans, a navy hoody, and Puma shoes.  She was facing Ron, and she was looking out over the bridge, but her head was turned to the side, with her hair in her face, so that Ron couldn’t see her eyes.  She wore a half- smile, an expression like she knew what was going on, what would happen to Ron when he passed over the bridge to his own neighborhood, and the next time he ever walked to the foreign neighborhood again; like she knew that maybe one day Ron would find peace if he showed himself to someone like her instead of only him noticing someone like her. 

Ron wanted to talk to her, but he didn’t know what to say.  He crossed the street, walking with pep in his step and his hands in his pockets.  He was two feet in front of her, with his mouth open, when he saw her eyes for the first time.  They matched his.  They were cold but beautiful; crystal, dark, stone rocks that almost didn’t match the time and place, like the man Ron had seen on the field.  Ron took a step back, but the girl remained confident.  Her half-smile told him all he needed to know.

“Beautiful night, isn’t it?” Ron said, trying to find the girl’s irises.  Ron sucked in his breath, waiting for a reply, but she just smiled, a complete smile, and slowly walked forward, from where Ron had come from.  They passed each other, like a meteor just missing a planet, while the girl looked Ron profoundly in the eyes.

Ron walked the rest of the way home.  He listened to his IPod and thought about all of the people he had seen.  Some seemed to belong, some didn’t.  Some he didn’t know what to think of, as he would think they wouldn’t know what to think of him.  Is that what I want? he thought.  Ron walked home and sat on his porch stairs and looked up to the moon.  It was right in front of him, and he thought of how when he was a kid he wanted to go there, to see the craters, to walk on its surface.