Sushi for 1
I sat at the sushi bar alone tonight.
Usually I’m here with M and A, but they had a prior commitment this evening and so, for the Monday night ritual of sushi—it’s just me.
And that’s okay.
I sip my Sauvi B and watch the Reds and the Pirates on the TV. With spring comes baseball.
I like Nova II (the sushi bar we go to).
It’s the kinda place where they know you.
Where they pour more wine when yours is gone and don’t charge you. Like you’re just sittin’ in their livin’ room airin’ out the Monday. Small town mannerisms pop up even here in the A.
Although I expect that happens everywhere in the world. Community acknowledging that we’re all here together in this place, this life.
All bound by hot n’ sour soup and spicy tuna rolls.
I take another sip, and think about 30 minutes ago—
The elevator stops on the 28th floor.
“Oh no,” I glance at M, standing next to me.
“What?” she asks.
But there’s no answer.
There’s no time and there’s no need.
The doors open and the boy and his new boy get on.
It’s very strange to be stuck in an 8x8 box with someone you lived a whole life with and are now so far apart—
Lives, even worlds away—
It’s like I’m standing in a different body on the red peak of some Martian mountain looking at a blue speck that is Earth where I lived a life 500 years ago. Like I’m the stuff Scientology is made of—the immortalized ectoplasm of an alien specter looking at a version of the world that I’m not a part of anymore but was once.
“Move over, Trey,” the new boy says laughing.
“I know! It’s busy tonight,” I smile and slide over.
M does not speak, which is lucky for everyone. She’s very much leaned into that if you don’t have something nice to say adage. And she doesn’t.
Down we go. Of course, it’s one of those nights where the elevator stops on every floor.
I’m not anxious though.
We don’t speak, the boy and I.
I guess we’re all outta things to say at this point.
We’re just strangers.
Just two people who are nothing—
not even neighbors.
Just ships passing.
We’re good at that though.
On the other side of all this I realized we’d been passing in the night a long time before it all went sideways.
Different ports, different captains, different cargo—
different courses to chart.
The elevator opens to the parking deck and they get off.
M looks at me and I look at her. And that’s that—
Some new customers sit down at the bar, and I flag down the bartender to pay my tab.
I put on my blue headphones and walk out to W Peachtree St.
The air is cool but not cold. Spring is here.
Sometimes I think I can measure my life by the walks I’ve taken down this block.
By the steps different versions of me have strolled on this familiar walk.
I feel like a flat stone hurled across the glassy waters of the smooth pond where Gran used to take me to feed the ducks. Just skippin’ along to my unknown but inevitable stop and sink into the depths. Down with the duckweed and filtered light.
Momma taught me how to do that.
How to skip a rock?
How to pick the right one, smooth and flat, and arc your arm just so, and send it skipping off onto the lake.
I never could skip it as far as she could though. I doubt if I can still, honestly.
The buildings' windows shine against the city lights.
Almost like glitter.
I read somewhere that grief is like glitter.
First, it’s everywhere. You just can’t seem to get rid of it.
Stuck to your hands, all over the floor.
But in time it fades.
And then one day when you’ve forgotten it you just open a drawer and catch a glimpse of a speck.
You just see it shimmer and remember for an instant.
You just catch a glimmer on the elevator—
And then you flick it off your shirt and you go to dinner.