The city can be mean. I’ve seen its ugly head crane around, eyes leering from a waxen skull, fearsome and beyond all control.

Last night, we went to a club called Plastic People in Shoreditch to celebrate Rachel’s 21st birthday. The plump DJ spun disco tunes for a dance floor full of bodies: old bodies, young bodies, foreign bodies, lonely bodies, lusting bodies. Bodies full of chemicals, and of love. The air moved in lazy circles, taking its time to renew the empty pocket above our heads. It was like dog breath, animal breath, over us all. I was fatigued and found it hard to breathe, but I wanted Rachel to have a good time, so I resolved to stay. And then Kat’s wallet was stolen. Pilfered right from the gaping flap of her shoulder-strap purse. This wasn’t the first time it happened to her while we were out—on my own 21st birthday, back in January, her entire bag was whisked away from under her legs. Understandably, she now finds that particular birthday to be cursed and refuses to ring in another person’s twenty-first year.

It doesn’t matter how many times it happens: having something stolen by another human being is sickening on any occasion. While I’ve been lucky enough to hang onto my possessions while abroad (touch wood), it leaves a leathery knot in my stomach—something hard and painfully twisted—to watch my friends get taken advantage of by opportunistic strangers. Magpies and money-lenders, pimps and pickpockets, hobos and runaways and thugs…who are these men and women with the itchy fingers and the cold, cold hearts? You can try and pull a Jean Valjean (“I only stole the bread to feed my sister’s child!”) but the fact of the matter is, if you’re spending ten quid to get into a nightclub just to snatch twenty pounds and a Boots card from an unsuspecting 19-year-old, something is seriously wrong with you. 

Yes, this city can be cruel. But then, there are kinder afternoons spent in the park, where all of humankind comes out to harness the same spool of sun. Today was especially hot. My nail polish—a cool mint green—began to bubble in the heat, and the soles of my sandals were pockmarked with shiny melted tar. Summer in the city…it means cleavage (“cleavage, cleavage!”) sings Regina Spektor. Indeed, there was plenty of skin on display in Regent’s Park this afternoon. Glistening shoulder blades, soft bellies exposed like the yolks of eggs, smooth upper thighs. Pink skin, bristled and raw. After a few more weeks of this sun, our human skin will have gone crispy and brown, like bacon. And so, we spend our time happily frying together on that lawn.