Chimes for a few minutes tonight sounded like they were coming out of the past. I stretched my body across the years to listen and to feel things properly. You gave them to me and I hung them outside the slider where we could listen to them while laying in bed together. Shrine builder.
The young woman in the Dunkin Donuts had noticed my absence and remarked upon it today. She seemed to look at me differently, directly. I asked her what she had been up to. Not much - working, paying bills, going to school, parenting... She's the closest thing I have to a friend in the town where I live. The day after Christmas, I handed her an Amazon gift card and fled.
I mailed the title of my daughter's dead car to her today, after eating a pressed Brazilian breakfast sandwich. I'm spoiled for choice of food items here compared to West Texas. In the post office, a line of international customers waited in front of me, both men and women, between ten and fifteen of them. They were all shorter than me by at least an adult American head. They weren't spoiled for choice of food items in the places they grew up, I'm guessing.
The seafood place where I'd almost become sort of a regular, I had to stop in there for Chinese New Year. Two years in a row. I guess I have traditions now. One of my friends was working. She looked pale and exhausted. More exhausted than usual. I handed her the small red envelope. Her mouth smiled but her eyes wanted to cry. She's worked there for two years now - six days a week at least twelve hours a day. Soon, they'll move her to a restaurant in another state, closer to her children who she's been supporting from afar. Her ex is no good, doesn't help them at all. She'd like a man who is good. She doesn't care about the money. Just a man who is good and who she can trust. Now, there is no time at all for a man.
After I eat, I wonder if I should walk up and hug her. But I don't do that.
The young woman in the Dunkin Donuts had noticed my absence and remarked upon it today. She seemed to look at me differently, directly. I asked her what she had been up to. Not much - working, paying bills, going to school, parenting... She's the closest thing I have to a friend in the town where I live. The day after Christmas, I handed her an Amazon gift card and fled.
I mailed the title of my daughter's dead car to her today, after eating a pressed Brazilian breakfast sandwich. I'm spoiled for choice of food items here compared to West Texas. In the post office, a line of international customers waited in front of me, both men and women, between ten and fifteen of them. They were all shorter than me by at least an adult American head. They weren't spoiled for choice of food items in the places they grew up, I'm guessing.
The seafood place where I'd almost become sort of a regular, I had to stop in there for Chinese New Year. Two years in a row. I guess I have traditions now. One of my friends was working. She looked pale and exhausted. More exhausted than usual. I handed her the small red envelope. Her mouth smiled but her eyes wanted to cry. She's worked there for two years now - six days a week at least twelve hours a day. Soon, they'll move her to a restaurant in another state, closer to her children who she's been supporting from afar. Her ex is no good, doesn't help them at all. She'd like a man who is good. She doesn't care about the money. Just a man who is good and who she can trust. Now, there is no time at all for a man.
After I eat, I wonder if I should walk up and hug her. But I don't do that.
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