Streets can change just like people do. They can age, they can be born. They can leave you behind, and they can welcome you with arms warmer than a summer sun. They can steam in a thunderstorm and hide under blankets of rain, waiting softly for the end. Streets keep to themselves mostly, but some reach out and grab your attention, overloading your senses and dominate you for the time they come into your life. They connect you to everyone and everywhere else, they were made for you to be with others.

Right now, Case wanted to be alone. The thought of talking to anyone else made them nauseous. Conversations were trouble, and Case couldn't handle trouble right now. Flexing their toes out, then curling them inward, Case tried taking deep breaths for a minute to calm the heartbeat in their chest. The beating continued, thumping about somewhere inside, slowly becoming more painful. The tickle that comes before a sneeze started climbing it's way to Case's throat. Pulling their shirt over their head and tugging their hair loose from it's bun, Case slouched and held their face in their hands. The light golden wheat-color of their fur caught in the beam of sun that squeezed itself between their curtains. Flickers of red and orange jumped on the tips of their coat as they started to shake. Jumping, dancing, then spasming as each breath hitched in their throat. This lasted for about ten minutes.

This didn't happen very often. Usually things like thoughts or memories went unnoticed, and Case could usually make sense of them. Once in a while, however, there comes along a thought that pulls something from down inside somewhere. Like a thin, unstable string deep within a warm, familiar well. Slowly casting downwards, until it snags on the way. Then, it brings the full thought upwards, as the day grows older, as the hours move by the string travels back upwards, bringing its catch with it. Eventually it reaches the top of the well and comes out into the mind, and they have to sit down. It makes Case unsteady, edgy, distracted. Many times in the middle of writing or conversation, or even once at a party, a thought had struck Case this way, hard enough to derail their consciousness. Like being unable to look away from a scene.

This time it was about love. Really. Nothing else, just an overpowering feeling of affection, desire to be with and enjoy, to help, to care. No face or name was attached, no word or place. Just a pull and a want that took Case by the knees and shook them to their forehead and back. They laid their ears against their head, letting their hair come over and cover their eyes from the light flowing through the window. A slow breeze followed the light inside, making its way around the room lazily, sifting through the dust in the air. Case looked up.

The swath of curtain that flanked the light of day moved slowly, anciently, as if drawn around in circles the same way a spoon stirs coffee in a mug. Warm and slow. Faces swam to the front of Case's mind, features, small eyes and different shaped noses. Cheekbones, necks, shoulders, more noses, foreheads, hands, long limbs, pictures. Pictures were a rare thing in Case's mind, which usually left thoughts in an abstract, undefined ether. Like smoke curling outwards from the central thought. Maybe lights, sometimes. But rarely images like these, and now they moved faster. Shuttering and shaking around their head, keeping time with Case's heartbeat. And still, that overwhelming feeling of want, affection, care. Case closed their eyes and looked. For a person, for an identity to put to these images, to this feeling.

Case found none.