The shame should be overwhelming, should make him wretch, yet it doesn’t even spoil his appetite. If you can even call it “appetite” at that hour—12:15 am is hardly the meal you’ve waited for all day: it’s a gastronomic offense, an insolent laugh in the stern face of weight control. The golden arches are like … Continue reading "McShame"

Stepping onto the descending escalator, my carry-ons growing steadily heavier as I endured the arduous trek from gate D14 to A23, my eyes could find no visual distraction from the surrounding stainless steel walls and silver treads until they focused on the cascading locks of the traveler seven steps ahead. Her hair was the color … Continue reading "The Compliment"

My house is a perpetual soundtrack of gleeful refrains, a constant din of cheer. It is relentless, an unending cycle of major-key melodies delivered on faux-metal xylophones or digital calliopes, 18 second loops of generic tension-and-release: wind-up boxes snapping their brittle lullabies; television cartoons with their crescendos of symphonic excitement; magnetic toys containing choirs of … Continue reading "The Din"

The White Album plays overhead, though the coffee shop is wired with only two speakers, one of which entertains the kitchen staff; thus, while they assemble turkey and avocado sandwiches and sing along with Paul and his rollicking piano, patrons are treated to a nearly somber rendition of “Martha My Dear”, empty but for a … Continue reading "Excavation"

Please don’t jump to conclusions, sir. I didn’t say I didn’t do it, I said it had to be done. I sat here for 20 minutes trying to drink my latte while that windbag made one disparaging comment after another, never missing a chance to add another jab. It’s racism, you know. Not exactly racism, but those … Continue reading "The Confession"

She was my little secret, this seemingly ordinary woman who scrambled eggs and toasted bagels and filled the cramped Caribbean cafe with the scent of sandalwood and the color of light. Her hair, a glorious tangle that might have looked alive had it not been slayed with various small, jeweled chopsticks at the top of … Continue reading "Egg Sandwich with Swiss"

She refused to write with him in mind. Not that she couldn’t—he was still a potent muse, a memory eager to stretch itself into the present tense—but it was the one respect she could offer to Issac, who despite her best efforts, seemed to quietly worry that anything (everything?) she wrote was a thinly veiled … Continue reading "Managing the Memory"

He was always eager to share his opinions on plastic. Not just with me, but to anyone with the misfortune of stepping into his field of vision while in possession of any polymer packaging material. Of course, I took the brunt of it, despite learning long ago that “paper or plastic?” was a loaded question … Continue reading "Paper, not plastic"

It’s all about the cajones, that’s all. That’s what gets the job done. I nod along, staring into my turpentine and tonic (I couldn’t spare the extra two to make it a shelf gin) hoping that nodding will make it seem like I believe him. Just roll up with a warm smile — not too big, because … Continue reading "The Robbery"

“So, do you have any questions?” The syntax of our discussion had already blurred, non-linear snippets adrift in my memory: Russell pushing the unpalatable words from his mouth in disjointed semantic chunks; bits of his insufficiently rehearsed script superimposed over my nervous chuckle; pregnant silences punctured by banal summations. I should be a hard-nose — … Continue reading "Pink Slip"