When you look out a window, the sky becomes a beautiful tableau, the moon a splash of white gold and the stars mere bursts of unpainted canvas.

Living in the city by night is exciting. You get the opportunity to grasp unknown beauties out of insignificant things and a fast-paced world stretches out farther than your eye's sight. Lights flash in and out of your car and, two hands on wheel, you drive and dodge other vehicles, each carrying their own perfection on the riding mass of four tires and comfortable leather.

I decorated my taxi with Polaroid's I took on whimsical fits of artistry. A girl standing on a sidewalk, a coke can lying near a trash bin, a plastic bag chasing after a red balloon, the incredible hundred street lights of an LA too big for words, racing, pacing, singing out loud.

I see tens and dozens of strangers per day, climbing from and into my cab or, as I wish I could, walking faster than I press the pedals beneath my feet. They can be rude or gentle, hurried or calm. I accompany them for a moment in their lives and even if they don't need me to breathe, they need me to be brought back to their haven and I become the heroin of the second. Sometimes, they talk. To me or to their cell. To their friend or to the person passing by the window. To the sky or to their feet. I slip unconsciously in their everyday and forget who this taxi girl I am is.

I used to believe I'd be an adventurer, that I'd fly over to Europe or sail away to China but I'm still there: stuck in my life and traffic jams, drinking endless cappuccino's to stay awake in a world going too fast for me.

When I close my eyes, I see a boy. I guess I should say I see a man but that would be untrue. He often calls a taxi when he's drunk or when the metro seems too noisy for him. I pick him up in front of bars or at the corner of a street.

I don't know who he is nor what he is looking for but for some unknown reason, our two lives meet dance then separate until the next time. If I haven't seen him for a week, I have the urge to kill any other taxi driver who could've driven him home.

He never says anything. He climbs behind, he closes his eyes, he doesn't even bother telling me the address: he knows I know it by heart. When he sees me, an expression of relief floods over his face and he seems more relaxed. I wonder if he recognises me or if it's the warmth of the taxi he acknowledges.

My heart skips a beat, I see him on the sidewalk with his hand raised. Honks fly at me as I pull over in an abrupt turn and as I park, he smiles wearily as he sees me. As usual, he doesn't say a word but this time, the head falls more deeply in the leather behind and he sighs. His day seems to have been rough; tearstains continue to shine on his face. His eyes are darker than usual, powerful from what I ignore and his hands open and close on the air in the meagre attempt to hold on to something.

He lives in a building where shabby curtains try to flow in the wind, where the steps are crooked with people sitting and living on them, where the smell of soup and perspiration linger and where there is a window that belongs to him. I kept guessing and then, one day, I knew: it was the one that was never lit and in which I could never peek. The one that could make me dream even better than my own.

As I stop in front of it, he hesitates then shakes his head of black and blue tears. He steps out, looks hungrily at the front steps then drops his gaze. I stare at him because he has his back turned to me and as I watch his shoulders fight against the cold, I wonder from where his cold originates.

Then he turns and sighs to his feet. He opens the passenger's door and slips inside my private space. I must be gaping at him; I'm sure I am but he doesn't notice and merely closes the door.

And the whole Atlantic Ocean and maybe even more burst into my chest.

His eyes are a dark shade of leaves but the black is slowly killing the green and, turning liquid, fish are jumping in and out of the troubled waters. His upper lip tries to stable the other as white teeth bite down the traitor. His chin wobbles in control and his cheeks tighten under the moonlight skin.

He bends, reaches then turns the counter on again. As he watches the red digits starting to speed, he smiles a little to himself.

- Hi, he breathes then pauses. May I smoke?

I nod, slowly starting to worry about who and what he is, who and what I am, who and what is the world.

He leans back in the seat, fumbles a second in his large jeans' pocket, pulls out a crooked cigarette and a silver lighter. He stares at it for a moment then straightens his Lucky Strike.

- My girlfriend bought me this, he says, lifting the lighter up for me to see.

He pauses to take a drag. When he starts speaking again, his voice is a little choky.

- We broke up today.

Another drag.

- She has been cheating on me for three months now. -pause- I thought we were in love.

His face is too young to look so hurt. He shouldn't know what the word 'pain' means, he is still at the age when you can see the sun go up because you have spent the most wonderful night of your life.

- I think.. I think I knew without willing to admit it. I've been drinking a lot.. I've been doing a lot of drugs too, he adds, sliding a glimpse at me.

I look back at him and he rapidly glances away.

- She said it was the reason why she stopped loving me. But she got me into this, he murmurs. She said it would make me feel better and I did.. I really did.

I watch him fidget at the thin sleeve of his shirt, near the valley of his arm.

- I didn't feel like working anymore, I wanted to be with her as much as possible. So we could share this but.. she didn't like the idea. She said I had to earn money so we could move in together and get married. We used to celebrate each time I got paid, she would wear.. a silver crown and buy a cheap bottle of wine. We would get high together and.. I don't think I'll ever be happy like that again. -pause- When I lost my job.. we broke up but she took me back when I found another one and I was in heaven. I was really in heaven.

He sighs and catches a tear on his cheek.

- I'd give anything right now to be with her again. I don't know how things could've gone wrong, I can't understand what I did to make her.. go away. She said I was the best thing that ever happened to her and I used to believe her because it made me feel so proud and that.. I was finally worthy of something.

He closes his eyes then crushes his cigarette in the ashtray. His fingers caress a Polaroid I took of a deserted road, where the white line in its middle runs out to the blue horizon. It's my favourite because of what isn't in the picture.

- I used to dream of travelling. Visit places all over the world, discover other cultures, he smiles. I'm sure anywhere is more beautiful than this city but I don't feel like leaving because she's here.

He drops his eyes to his fiddling hands.

- Maybe I should.. see other places.

I smile to him and a little to myself as I unstuck the Polaroid. He flashes green eyes in my direction and shyly takes the picture.

- Thank you, he whispers.

A tear manages to squeeze out from his shut eyelids and drops to sparkle on my fingers.

Then he shuts the counter off, slips a bill in my pocket and steps out the door.