Musings

Key Foods on Avenue A is a sad place on weekday afternoons. Sad, you could say, or beautiful, or just true. The woman in front of you tells the cashier she is both a cat person and a baby person, even though people say you have to be one or the other. Another cashier yells at a man with only half his teeth to take the coupon flier from the front of the store, not from behind her register. The elderly are out in force, the decrepit, everything moves slower down the aisles than at night and you adore the scene. I have time for every delay. The sun shines like summer but the wind blows fall through your hair.

You see the waves approaching shore, feel them wash around your feet and rise to your kneecaps. You know you've only been on temporary leave, been offered a summer's reprieve to fill your lungs with air and soon the cold water will knock you down again, send you swirling into the maelstrom, turn everything you touch to rot.

But we are not there yet, you tell the woman at the checkout when she isn't paying attention. And maybe this time I'll know how to breathe underwater.