Flights of Fancy

you've been here before

Suppose you find me in a diner booth daydreaming over a cup of coffee, the vapor fogging up my glasses, late rainy night, soft eighties Japanese music playing on a distant speaker, but I have headphones on. Chin propped in the palm of my hand, looking thoughtful with my half-closed eyes gazing out the window, onto the busy streets. I never talked about pink and blue neon signs out that window, and yet they were in your head.

This uncomfortable-looking man comes sitting in my booth, right in front of me. I take off my headphones, unsure if he said something before he sat, yet realizing it's too late to know if he did. The way he has his mouth slightly open under a patchy mustache makes me wonder if his lips are dirty. I stare at him with my head tilted, waiting for him to speak. But he keeps staring dead-eyed, his mouth unmoving. I gulp and lick my lips, almost as if telepathically telling him to do the same.

Finally he excuses himself in a cow-ish voice and says he has to take this, and my first guess is he means a phone call, though I later think maybe he means the booth I'm sitting in. But he stands up and walks toward the washroom with a tight hold on his belly.

I gaze over at the waitress behind the counter, who's shaking her head. You imagine her wiping a glass with a cloth. She speaks directly to me. "I've seen people happy to be participating in life." Is it normal that when I'm talking with strangers I imagine talking with my oldest friends? But it might be that her interest in botany came through, and she was saying something about pussy willows and pansies, which sparked my immediate curiosity to see her underwear.

It's not that I'm enigmatic, it's that you never made an effort to get to know me.