Drowning on Dry Land

Was it that the world had gone into slow motion, to make her hair fan out so lazily around her face? Or had we been submerged in water without noticing it? That sounded right, because I couldn't breathe at all. She looked at me with the same gape-mouthed shock and I knew she felt it too, that we were drowning, here on this too-dry street. Dusty strangers brushed past us, heading toward home or a bar or the long and elegant neck of the night's bottle. We didn't notice them at all.