Tag: my stuff

We arrive late because I was watching a television show about shrimp.

We arrive and inside there are many people everywhere and they don’t do things I like. When it’s time to laugh they are serious and when something is serious they laugh like idiots. I am tired in the way I am tired when I am talking to people who talk about money.

“Ahmed, you’re here! And Meg, goodness, you look fabulous! That dress. That dress!”

My wife is Meg and Pat loves her so they invited us together though they wanted Meg. Many people want Meg and maybe men but I don’t care in the way a husband should. I am a husband to her like circus dogs or boys who wait in parks for men to pay them money for pleasant things. My wife screams. She is happy.

I walk away and through the living room where two women and two men talk at each other. They are on crushed velvet as green as plastic holiday trees. The walls have paintings in gold frames and the walls are melting on purpose. Everyone is moving their heads around so much and their eyes are going to leap from their heads and kiss. I cannot stand it, I move on. My stomach tells me I need to find a place.

In the kitchen I see gold brass everywhere. A track around an island of dead oak and granite seas with many floating ships of absolute beauty. Track lights from one end of the kitchen to the other that serve to create a moody lightmosphere. I go for the first plate, I reach for a toothpick. I run my tongue along the chorus in my mouth and moisten my lips.

Pretty little jumbo shrimp. They sit in a circles, biggest, bigger, and big. I eat them one at a time like women. So beautiful, little jumbo shrimp. So pretty. I eat them and I love them. I move across the table where other little ladies wait for me. Little corn, little bits of cube steak, little weenies. Meg appears from the living room, looking for me. I feel my head spin. I eat more shrimp and all the shrimp are gone when she is next to me.

She asks, “Do you concern yourself with the plights of others?”

I’m too busy eating my little ladies to answer and I shrug. She pats my forearm when she walks away. Her hand is wrinkles and blue.

Pat passes by with a wine bottle and goes into the living room where someone is guffawing like chunky potatoes. I move a corn in and I place it between my teeth. I move my jaw from side to side, roll the corn like a nubbly little log of joy, and strip it away layer by layer until the little corn lady is torn to bits and down my gullet, like chum and I am a shark, come baby. Chunky potatoes again, waddles and a lot of glub.

Someone says, “Jeez, Ahmed. Sit down.”

I don’t know him. I want to eat him and his face but spit him back out, into the toilet, into the shit. Little pictures hang on the walls just above beige tiles that run from the middle of the wall down to the floor like the golden path. I am meant to be here, with my ladies. I feel a groan and I know I should not stop.

Outside, on the deck, music is playing. It makes me want to vomit. Boom boom boom boom boom. They like earthquakes and they live in the wrong place. Go find your booms and leave me in silence here where the action is. I feel the booming in my head and stomach. It rattles me like cocktails in a blender. A constant woosh.

The cube steak is very nice. The marinade that Pat chose is exquisite. She knows how to dress them up and make them squee, little ladies in pretty red and brown dresses. A dash of rosemary somewhere in it, I can tell. It sits in a pool in the middle of my tongue and I allow it to drown before down, down it goes. I’ve stopped using toothpicks. Cube steak in my mouth, down my throat. Wet little chunky bits tra la la.

I sit down after all. He is gone but I see his face laughing at me from the toilet. I breathe heavy and something feels strange for a moment but it becomes better when I see more plates, more of them.

The bar stool lets me lean against the wall with the plate in my hand. Little carrots roll left and right as I try to steady it. Little carrots, what is the matter? You will come in here. And I laugh to myself when I look outside and see that no one is eating. They sit around the wood table stained in green and talk about inane things with glasses scattered across the battlefield between them. They laugh like the lobsters Pat boiled as they bathed to death. I look forward to their big juicy tails. They will be very nice. They make me feel good, like marmalade on pork loin. My stomach is screeching. I can see the refrigerator opening a portal into the universe where I lie in a pool of sauce and drink it like blood. The sky is ambrosia and when I stand naked and look up to the blueberry moon until it all explodes and comes down into my mouth. I place my hand on the granite to steady myself when my legs stop remembering what they do.

My hands, look. They are so colorful. My wife returns from the living room and looks at me and my hands.

“What are you doing? You are embarrassing me. Stop and go wash.”

“Alright, honey.”

I smile enough to make her walk away. I move to the sink. The water turns itself on and out it comes but I want to swallow all the water in the world so I put my face sideways enough to almost break my neck so I can fill my cheeks. The water wets me. I almost fall and the water leaves my face covered in glue. It rolls down to my shirt.

I lean against the cabinet and belch out the spirits of my ladies. When Pat passes by with the roast she stops and screams silence when she should be praying to me like a human god. I reach up and take it. My hands burn and so does my face as I tear it to shreds, such goodness. They try and hold me down, take my roast, but I stand and swing her around and we dance. She steps so lightly. When they disappear into the living room others come in from outside and stand across the island staring at me, their hands on metal stools and granite. I fall and we lie together, oh goodness. I feel my stomach complain and something new wants to come up and outside of me. I don’t want to let it and lie still for such a long time until I fall asleep.

We arrive late because I was watching a television show about shrimp.

We arrive and inside there are many people everywhere and they don’t do things I like. When it’s time to laugh they are serious and when something is serious they laugh like idiots. I am tired in the way I am tired when I am talking to people who talk about money.

“Ahmed, you’re here! And Meg, goodness, you look fabulous! That dress. That dress!”

My wife is Meg and Pat loves her so they invited us together though they wanted Meg. Many people want Meg and maybe men but I don’t care in the way a husband should. I am a husband to her like circus dogs or boys who wait in parks for men to pay them money for pleasant things. My wife screams. She is happy.

I walk away and through the living room where two women and two men talk at each other. They are on crushed velvet as green as plastic holiday trees. The walls have paintings in gold frames and the walls are melting on purpose. Everyone is moving their heads around so much and their eyes are going to leap from their heads and kiss. I cannot stand it, I move on. My stomach tells me I need to find a place.

In the kitchen I see gold brass everywhere. A track around an island of dead oak and granite seas with many floating ships of absolute beauty. Track lights from one end of the kitchen to the other that serve to create a moody lightmosphere. I go for the first plate, I reach for a toothpick. I run my tongue along the chorus in my mouth and moisten my lips.

Pretty little jumbo shrimp. They sit in a circles, biggest, bigger, and big. I eat them one at a time like women. So beautiful, little jumbo shrimp. So pretty. I eat them and I love them. I move across the table where other little ladies wait for me. Little corn, little bits of cube steak, little weenies. Meg appears from the living room, looking for me. I feel my head spin. I eat more shrimp and all the shrimp are gone when she is next to me.

She asks, “Do you concern yourself with the plights of others?”

I’m too busy eating my little ladies to answer and I shrug. She pats my forearm when she walks away. Her hand is wrinkles and blue.

Pat passes by with a wine bottle and goes into the living room where someone is guffawing like chunky potatoes. I move a corn in and I place it between my teeth. I move my jaw from side to side, roll the corn like a nubbly little log of joy, and strip it away layer by layer until the little corn lady is torn to bits and down my gullet, like chum and I am a shark, come baby. Chunky potatoes again, waddles and a lot of glub.

Someone says, “Jeez, Ahmed. Sit down.”

I don’t know him. I want to eat him and his face but spit him back out, into the toilet, into the shit. Little pictures hang on the walls just above beige tiles that run from the middle of the wall down to the floor like the golden path. I am meant to be here, with my ladies. I feel a groan and I know I should not stop.

Outside, on the deck, music is playing. It makes me want to vomit. Boom boom boom boom boom. They like earthquakes and they live in the wrong place. Go find your booms and leave me in silence here where the action is. I feel the booming in my head and stomach. It rattles me like cocktails in a blender. A constant woosh.

The cube steak is very nice. The marinade that Pat chose is exquisite. She knows how to dress them up and make them squee, little ladies in pretty red and brown dresses. A dash of rosemary somewhere in it, I can tell. It sits in a pool in the middle of my tongue and I allow it to drown before down, down it goes. I’ve stopped using toothpicks. Cube steak in my mouth, down my throat. Wet little chunky bits tra la la.

I sit down after all. He is gone but I see his face laughing at me from the toilet. I breathe heavy and something feels strange for a moment but it becomes better when I see more plates, more of them.

The bar stool lets me lean against the wall with the plate in my hand. Little carrots roll left and right as I try to steady it. Little carrots, what is the matter? You will come in here. And I laugh to myself when I look outside and see that no one is eating. They sit around the wood table stained in green and talk about inane things with glasses scattered across the battlefield between them. They laugh like the lobsters Pat boiled as they bathed to death. I look forward to their big juicy tails. They will be very nice. They make me feel good, like marmalade on pork loin. My stomach is screeching. I can see the refrigerator opening a portal into the universe where I lie in a pool of sauce and drink it like blood. The sky is ambrosia and when I stand naked and look up to the blueberry moon until it all explodes and comes down into my mouth. I place my hand on the granite to steady myself when my legs stop remembering what they do.

My hands, look. They are so colorful. My wife returns from the living room and looks at me and my hands.

“What are you doing? You are embarrassing me. Stop and go wash.”

“Alright, honey.”

I smile enough to make her walk away. I move to the sink. The water turns itself on and out it comes but I want to swallow all the water in the world so I put my face sideways enough to almost break my neck so I can fill my cheeks. The water wets me. I almost fall and the water leaves my face covered in glue. It rolls down to my shirt.

I lean against the cabinet and belch out the spirits of my ladies. When Pat passes by with the roast she stops and screams silence when she should be praying to me like a human god. I reach up and take it. My hands burn and so does my face as I tear it to shreds, such goodness. They try and hold me down, take my roast, but I stand and swing her around and we dance. She steps so lightly. When they disappear into the living room others come in from outside and stand across the island staring at me, their hands on metal stools and granite. I fall and we lie together, oh goodness. I feel my stomach complain and something new wants to come up and outside of me. I don’t want to let it and lie still for such a long time until I fall asleep.

When Marlene was a living little girl she began to notice that she looked different from the other children. Her skin was more brown, like the leather belts papa wore, and her long black hair was thick and straight, while nearly everyone else had curly light hair. She thought her hair looked like spiny straw. When she began to notice she also began to worry that there was something wrong with her, because even mama and papa did not look like her. They were tall and lean, but Marlene was short and soft. Marlene decided that everyone looked beautiful except for her, and she became sad and angry with God for making her an ugly brown girl with stupid hair. She sat alone in the overgrown grass field across from her house one day, trying to decide in which direction she would run away. She could live by the river to the north, where small turtles, frogs, and little chirp birds made beautiful noises. She thought that she could make beautiful noises with them. There was also the highway to the east. Many noisy large trucks passed through there and when mama and papa drove to the gas station she saw that the drivers looked more like her, dark and thick-haired and ugly. Maybe she was supposed to be one of them. Then, there was the large empty desert to the west of town. A boy in her class called it Mo Javee. She had never been to Mo Javee but knew it was a big, empty place with lots of sand and no water fountains or trees for shade. But she liked that it was empty because then there would be no one around to look at her ugly face. Marlene decided to go to Mo Javee, and the next morning, when mama and papa were still asleep, she woke up and put on her church dress. She looked from her window on the top floor of the apartment building and saw the Mo Javee mountains, and thought a map would be a good idea. She drew one on thick construction paper using the markers, then walked out and down to the street and walked to where her map told her to go. It pointed to a series of brown mountains at the end of her street. Marlene walked for a long time, and she thought it was taking too long to get to Mo Javee. She walked by people and looked up at them sometimes, but everyone was busy, too busy for an ugly girl, and she did not want to bother them. She walked and walked, and continued following her map to the mountains in Mo Javee until her brain became too tired to think about skin or hair or beauty.

When Marlene was a living little girl she began to notice that she looked different from the other children. Her skin was more brown, like the leather belts papa wore, and her long black hair was thick and straight, while nearly everyone else had curly light hair. She thought her hair looked like spiny straw. When she began to notice she also began to worry that there was something wrong with her, because even mama and papa did not look like her. They were tall and lean, but Marlene was short and soft. Marlene decided that everyone looked beautiful except for her, and she became sad and angry with God for making her an ugly brown girl with stupid hair. She sat alone in the overgrown grass field across from her house one day, trying to decide in which direction she would run away. She could live by the river to the north, where small turtles, frogs, and little chirp birds made beautiful noises. She thought that she could make beautiful noises with them. There was also the highway to the east. Many noisy large trucks passed through there and when mama and papa drove to the gas station she saw that the drivers looked more like her, dark and thick-haired and ugly. Maybe she was supposed to be one of them. Then, there was the large empty desert to the west of town. A boy in her class called it Mo Javee. She had never been to Mo Javee but knew it was a big, empty place with lots of sand and no water fountains or trees for shade. But she liked that it was empty because then there would be no one around to look at her ugly face. Marlene decided to go to Mo Javee, and the next morning, when mama and papa were still asleep, she woke up and put on her church dress. She looked from her window on the top floor of the apartment building and saw the Mo Javee mountains, and thought a map would be a good idea. She drew one on thick construction paper using the markers, then walked out and down to the street and walked to where her map told her to go. It pointed to a series of brown mountains at the end of her street. Marlene walked for a long time, and she thought it was taking too long to get to Mo Javee. She walked by people and looked up at them sometimes, but everyone was busy, too busy for an ugly girl, and she did not want to bother them. She walked and walked, and continued following her map to the mountains in Mo Javee until her brain became too tired to think about skin or hair or beauty.

Snow White thought it was strange that the little men in the cabin were so eager to help her and give her a home, and that all they asked in return was for her to tidy the place up, wash their floppy hats, clean the grog mugs. She sat on the front steps and smoked American Spirits after they left in the mornings to dig up their stones in the mine, waiting for all the forest creatures, who also loved her, to show up. When they were gathered around she told them to go inside and clean everything up, and they did so dutifully. The hummingbirds fluttered about, dusting things with the furious beating of their wings. The raccoons too care of the dishes. The bear made the beds and the foxes ate the food off the floor and licked up the beer, which they greatly enjoyed. All in all, it was a sweet deal while she waited for that asshole prince to come back for her. When she was done with her morning smoke Snow White liked to wander off to the pond hidden in the reeds, where she felt she would not be intruded upon. The water was sometimes murky, but she found it relaxing to be alone for a while. Sometimes, though, she thought she heard noises. Breathing, rustling in the tall grass, and one time she swears she heard someone whisper “scoops of vanilla and two hard cherries”, which could have only been the wind playing tricks on her mind.

Little Red Riding Hood went out into the woods, met up with the wolf, and the hunter was too drunk to get his ass off the john. But as it turns out the wolf had a MA in creative writing and spoke several accents of German with precise fluidity, so she got to liking him and changed her name to Mirna. They spent their days eating deer, berries, and mushrooms, and making pups of course, and the world just kind of kept going because it’s everyday that a Little Red Riding Hood winds up in the woods with a wolf but no one knows just what goes on out there and, frankly, they don’t want to know.

Little Red Riding Hood went out into the woods, met up with the wolf, and the hunter was too drunk to get his ass off the john. But as it turns out the wolf had a MA in creative writing and spoke several accents of German with precise fluidity, so she got to liking him and changed her name to Mirna. They spent their days eating deer, berries, and mushrooms, and making pups of course, and the world just kind of kept going because it’s everyday that a Little Red Riding Hood winds up in the woods with a wolf but no one knows just what goes on out there and, frankly, they don’t want to know.

Snow White thought it was strange that the little men in the cabin were so eager to help her and give her a home, and that all they asked in return was for her to tidy the place up, wash their floppy hats, clean the grog mugs. She sat on the front steps and smoked American Spirits after they left in the mornings to dig up their stones in the mine, waiting for all the forest creatures, who also loved her, to show up. When they were gathered around she told them to go inside and clean everything up, and they did so dutifully. The hummingbirds fluttered about, dusting things with the furious beating of their wings. The raccoons too care of the dishes. The bear made the beds and the foxes ate the food off the floor and licked up the beer, which they greatly enjoyed. All in all, it was a sweet deal while she waited for that asshole prince to come back for her. When she was done with her morning smoke Snow White liked to wander off to the pond hidden in the reeds, where she felt she would not be intruded upon. The water was sometimes murky, but she found it relaxing to be alone for a while. Sometimes, though, she thought she heard noises. Breathing, rustling in the tall grass, and one time she swears she heard someone whisper “scoops of vanilla and two hard cherries”, which could have only been the wind playing tricks on her mind.

You jerk off in front of the mirror, your mind wanders to the vague memories of tits fondled, mouths and cunts explored, and when you finish you think, for the first time in your life, that it might just be best to kill yourself.

“Mom,” you say, later, when you talk to your mother, after you’ve talked about the weather, “what did dad say when he saw you for the first time?”

“I don’t remember,” she says, and adds, “I think he might have been drunk. He liked to get drunk. He liked to be drunk with his friends and I think he met me when he had a girlfriend.”

“Did you mind that, him having a girlfriend?”

“No. He liked me more than whoever she was. Why are you asking me this?”

“I was curious,” you say, and precariously add, “I had no one else to ask.”

She frowns through the phone and you tell her you have to go.

Seven miles away, three hours or so after the talk with your mother, in the depth of asphalt fields, you encounter silence from a wall. The neon winding mural of the girl is silent to you. She doesn’t talk but you wish she does. Seven miles away, beneath your bed, is an old box of condoms, about nine months expired, now the color of the crusty white paint at the base of the wall beneath the neon girl. You encounter worrisome people who walk out in unstable unison, shadows, the two of them, one shoulders the other, like trees in a field, trash in the heap, wild geese in the magnificent flying V.

Inside, you find a seat and wait. They see you before your eyes adjust. The girls and their bare tits find you, trained.

Nearly three hours later, several unfulfilled erections and one hundred twenty-three dollars disseminated between three girls and a bartender later, you walk out and begin to walk home. Your car cries out to you from the darkness of the unlit parking lot, cries out for anyone, begging not to be left alone.

The walk is seven miles too long, two thousand four hundred thirteen miles too short. There are no sights save for the flash of logos and the occasional CLOSED sign. The steps are even, sober. In twenty-eight more years there will be more people, by far, than your imagination will handle. There will be more people that passed through your life than the population of Tahoe City, California, where you once drank a large cup of coffee and ate a thick slice of gorgeous, glistening pumpkin bread, topped with chopped almonds and made with obvious care. It occurred in a youthful state of mind, a less concerned one. Time does away with it, in one way or another, and even the careless adults become careful, or die.

You realize the girl in red slippers, the one from two years, three states, and dozens of pounds ago, was sweet on you. You swear. You remember the purple cat ears on her hoodie, the seriousness of her tone, the flex of her wrist. A mysterious sound echoes from a carport, somewhat distant, several hundred feet away, perhaps, like screeching metal, or a mouse’s death cry.

“Mouse’s gotta make a noise. Everything does.”

You pass through the tunnel, along the narrow strip of asphalt, your footsteps fill the space. The cars refuse to interrupt you, letting you scamper along, suddenly, momentarily, giddy, the flash of white, wrinkles you never show come out, stretch wide, up higher than reasonable, until you tire, and lower them down, and eventually exit the tunnel only to discover you did not go anywhere, but only walked into the same place you were before, with the same darkness, the same screeching, and again, cars.

When you are nearly home, the fucking dump, though it is not, you stop, and take a seat in front of a bus stop, on the curb, because the bench is dirty, and that still matters.

You don’t hear a thing, and she says “hello” to you, carefully. You look up, irritated, but it’s a girl, so you slowly smile, and think of her neon outline. Her coat makes it seem more angular than she is. Dressed in pants, sneakers, looking more normal and unexceptional than any of your memories.

“Hello,” you reply.

“It’s kind of dark here, to be sitting alone.”

“I know.”

“It’s dangerous.”

“There are more dangerous things to do.”

“I see.”

You have nothing to say, and lean back, stretching yourself out across her path.

She says, “Are you waiting for the bus?”

“There’s no more buses. It’s too late. I think you missed it.”

“I’m not waiting for the bus. I live close.”

“Me too.”

“What are you waiting for?”

“Nothing. I just got tired.”

“You shouldn’t sit alone out here.”

“Nothing will happen.”

She remains still and looks in the same direction you are, into dark apartment buildings and empty cars.

“You don’t have to stay,” you say. “You don’t have to stay, you know.”

“Do you want me to stay?” she asks. You look ahead and then nod.

“Okay.”

She sits beside you, slides her hands along her legs to tuck her coat beneath her thighs, takes a seat, sniffs and quietly watches the ghostly cars float by, one after the other.

“It actually is kind of nice. Like an empty mirror.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s the same street I see all the time, but it’s not the same. Everything is reflected differently. I don’t know, it just feels strange.”

“I can see that. Which do you prefer? This reflection or the other?”

“The other, I think. I like seeing a place busy. It feels more natural.”

“I suppose. I think this is more natural than anything else.”

“Maybe. It’s not too warm on this side, though.”

“It is kind of cold.”

“Yea.”

You stare at your boot, scuffed, work from months of consistent use, but still capable.

“Let’s find someplace to warm up” you say, and she does not reply for a long time, long enough for doves to fly through and around, a space so large the world could fit inside.

“No,” she says, “I don’t want to. I better go.”

“Oh. Alright.”

She stands and holds her oversized purse to her side, looks in three or four directions, assesses what is to come, and before she walks away she asks you, quite plainly, “Will you remember me?”

“Of course,” you say.

“Then you’ll be okay, even when you forget.”

“I won’t forget.”

“You will, if you have to.”

You watch her walk toward the twist in the wind, and when she disappears you swear, you utter “I swear,” and begin to wonder about the number of hers that exist in the neighborhood, then the city, and because you can’t stop, every place you never knew existed. When you stand again, you feel a song come on. The summer wind comes blowing in from across the sea, pushing you home and then further along, another few miles.

You jerk off in front of the mirror, your mind wanders to the vague memories of tits fondled, mouths and cunts explored, and when you finish you think, for the first time in your life, that it might just be best to kill yourself.

“Mom,” you say, later, when you talk to your mother, after you’ve talked about the weather, “what did dad say when he saw you for the first time?”

“I don’t remember,” she says, and adds, “I think he might have been drunk. He liked to get drunk. He liked to be drunk with his friends and I think he met me when he had a girlfriend.”

“Did you mind that, him having a girlfriend?”

“No. He liked me more than whoever she was. Why are you asking me this?”

“I was curious,” you say, and precariously add, “I had no one else to ask.”

She frowns through the phone and you tell her you have to go.

Seven miles away, three hours or so after the talk with your mother, in the depth of asphalt fields, you encounter silence from a wall. The neon winding mural of the girl is silent to you. She doesn’t talk but you wish she does. Seven miles away, beneath your bed, is an old box of condoms, about nine months expired, now the color of the crusty white paint at the base of the wall beneath the neon girl. You encounter worrisome people who walk out in unstable unison, shadows, the two of them, one shoulders the other, like trees in a field, trash in the heap, wild geese in the magnificent flying V.

Inside, you find a seat and wait. They see you before your eyes adjust. The girls and their bare tits find you, trained.

Nearly three hours later, several unfulfilled erections and one hundred twenty-three dollars disseminated between three girls and a bartender later, you walk out and begin to walk home. Your car cries out to you from the darkness of the unlit parking lot, cries out for anyone, begging not to be left alone.

The walk is seven miles too long, two thousand four hundred thirteen miles too short. There are no sights save for the flash of logos and the occasional CLOSED sign. The steps are even, sober. In twenty-eight more years there will be more people, by far, than your imagination will handle. There will be more people that passed through your life than the population of Tahoe City, California, where you once drank a large cup of coffee and ate a thick slice of gorgeous, glistening pumpkin bread, topped with chopped almonds and made with obvious care. It occurred in a youthful state of mind, a less concerned one. Time does away with it, in one way or another, and even the careless adults become careful, or die.

You realize the girl in red slippers, the one from two years, three states, and dozens of pounds ago, was sweet on you. You swear. You remember the purple cat ears on her hoodie, the seriousness of her tone, the flex of her wrist. A mysterious sound echoes from a carport, somewhat distant, several hundred feet away, perhaps, like screeching metal, or a mouse’s death cry.

“Mouse’s gotta make a noise. Everything does.”

You pass through the tunnel, along the narrow strip of asphalt, your footsteps fill the space. The cars refuse to interrupt you, letting you scamper along, suddenly, momentarily, giddy, the flash of white, wrinkles you never show come out, stretch wide, up higher than reasonable, until you tire, and lower them down, and eventually exit the tunnel only to discover you did not go anywhere, but only walked into the same place you were before, with the same darkness, the same screeching, and again, cars.

When you are nearly home, the fucking dump, though it is not, you stop, and take a seat in front of a bus stop, on the curb, because the bench is dirty, and that still matters.

You don’t hear a thing, and she says “hello” to you, carefully. You look up, irritated, but it’s a girl, so you slowly smile, and think of her neon outline. Her coat makes it seem more angular than she is. Dressed in pants, sneakers, looking more normal and unexceptional than any of your memories.

“Hello,” you reply.

“It’s kind of dark here, to be sitting alone.”

“I know.”

“It’s dangerous.”

“There are more dangerous things to do.”

“I see.”

You have nothing to say, and lean back, stretching yourself out across her path.

She says, “Are you waiting for the bus?”

“There’s no more buses. It’s too late. I think you missed it.”

“I’m not waiting for the bus. I live close.”

“Me too.”

“What are you waiting for?”

“Nothing. I just got tired.”

“You shouldn’t sit alone out here.”

“Nothing will happen.”

She remains still and looks in the same direction you are, into dark apartment buildings and empty cars.

“You don’t have to stay,” you say. “You don’t have to stay, you know.”

“Do you want me to stay?” she asks. You look ahead and then nod.

“Okay.”

She sits beside you, slides her hands along her legs to tuck her coat beneath her thighs, takes a seat, sniffs and quietly watches the ghostly cars float by, one after the other.

“It actually is kind of nice. Like an empty mirror.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s the same street I see all the time, but it’s not the same. Everything is reflected differently. I don’t know, it just feels strange.”

“I can see that. Which do you prefer? This reflection or the other?”

“The other, I think. I like seeing a place busy. It feels more natural.”

“I suppose. I think this is more natural than anything else.”

“Maybe. It’s not too warm on this side, though.”

“It is kind of cold.”

“Yea.”

You stare at your boot, scuffed, work from months of consistent use, but still capable.

“Let’s find someplace to warm up” you say, and she does not reply for a long time, long enough for doves to fly through and around, a space so large the world could fit inside.

“No,” she says, “I don’t want to. I better go.”

“Oh. Alright.”

She stands and holds her oversized purse to her side, looks in three or four directions, assesses what is to come, and before she walks away she asks you, quite plainly, “Will you remember me?”

“Of course,” you say.

“Then you’ll be okay, even when you forget.”

“I won’t forget.”

“You will, if you have to.”

You watch her walk toward the twist in the wind, and when she disappears you swear, you utter “I swear,” and begin to wonder about the number of hers that exist in the neighborhood, then the city, and because you can’t stop, every place you never knew existed. When you stand again, you feel a song come on. The summer wind comes blowing in from across the sea, pushing you home and then further along, another few miles.