I decide to sleep in this location. It is a covered place and I am confident I can secure my person and my belongings from prying eyes and the covetous fingers who would take the few possessions I prefer to carry with me when I move because they are required and useful. I try to sleep. Maybe I slept.
When I get up I move thru the place with my inventory eyes, checking that
everything that I left is still in the place that I left it. The items
that I require to perform morning rituals, although I do not have a firm
memory of placing them where they are found, are gathered and used for their
intended purposes. I should have returned them to a central, collection
point. Maybe a small kit or carrying case. That is a good
idea. Today I will try to keep my observant eye out for one of
those. Maybe I won't forget.
Add to reminders. Today is the day to pack-up all the items because this
temporary place will be (must be) vacated by check-out. If check-out
arrives and I have not yet packed, I will again be item-less. But first
my bladder. I leave to locate a urinal or at least a secluded place
where prying eyes and voices will permit me to release last nights wastewater
without any repercussions. I try to blend in with those with obvious
destinations. Maybe I have to set my face like they do.
There are landmarks which are not completely unfamiliar. This collection
of structures, this sidewalk, this railing, none of these people, but that
doorway is the correct direction; I pause. Wait a second. Where am
I headed? Is that man looking at me with concern and discontent in the
way he squints and purses his cheeks? Obviously this is not the right
way for a toilet. I turn and retrace my steps. Maybe I came this
way and it only looks odd because I was walking the opposite direction.
Am I lost? I'm not lost. I try to not be lost. Maybe I
am.
The flow of the crowd seems to indicate they know this gangway leads somewhere
they want to go, which means it is not a dead-end. I should keep a
lookout for a sign for a toilet. This causeway must have been obscured
when I was walking past here a few minutes ago. What was I supposed
to?..oh right...a backpack to put-in my face-wash and nose spray and vitamin
bottles and such. I need to get back before check-out. And I need
to leave enough time to pack up before. No rush. But stick to the
reminders: piss and get back to pack. I try to prioritize.
Maybe it's less important than I think it is.
This antique store sounds empty of employees and customers. Hello?
My muffled voice is a hollow echo-less thing of the past. Squeezing past
nothing I want and nobody to sell it to me, I see a sign for a bathroom.
This tiny cramped hallway is jammed with an overstock of junk that Nana and
Papa probably left on the curb when they bought one that worked better, or
forgot in their attic when they moved to a better house. Either way,
could this crooked door in a damaged door-frame be the door to the
restroom? I try to open the door quietly. Maybe that was
unnecessary.
Pulling hard to un-stick the door jamb from the... Hello-sorry! (There are three women sitting almost on top of each other in this closet.) I stammer that thought this was the restroom and offer my apologies. Can you tell me where the restroom is? (The tallest one stands and I get a quick flash of thigh, leg, and wind of passing scent which draws me along in her wake.) There is a washroom down and back there. I'll show you how to get there. I try to not stare at her back side. Maybe she didn't mind.
The corridor gives way to a walkway, which becomes a pedestrian shopping area. We discuss comfortable words and move in-sync. Her face seems always to be content with her hair either mussed by the wind or covering her freshly washed face. I try not to want to kiss her. Maybe she was trying to not want to kiss me.
She says we need to use this elevator-type of thing. The bank of massive
doors are closed but the smallest one on the end is just closing and I see a
tiny key on a minuscule key-fob above the door frame. I take it out of
the little key-hole and show it to her. She relays that the larger doors
are always crammed to overflowing with hordes of people and that we should
take the small one when it returns. I try to listen to her wonderful
voice. Maybe she is not bothered by mine.
I drop the key and it lands on the pitted concrete floor near her hand. (We are sitting on the floor waiting on this strange elevator which could lead to different floor, a gas chamber, or a quick crush.) I touch her hand with my searching-for-the-key fingers. I try not to jerk my hand away from hers. Maybe that stare thru her unkempt bangs is as welcoming as it feels.
This is us. We compliment each other's failures. Our flaws are incredibly huge to the collective strange faces whom we pass on the way to our daily rituals. A year ago, at an uncomfortable ritual we forced ourselves to attend for no clear rational reason, another couple asked the simplest describe-how-we-met question. I try to formulate an accurate reply. Maybe she struggles too.
From both of our perspectives, her (cramped in a vintage store closet with women she had imprinted on for no obvious or apparent reason) and me (following her faulty decision-making process because mine had been broken and I had no idea) we find it difficult to explain in sentences that make sense to common partygoers. I try not to understand the futility of wanting to not be mentally disordered. Maybe we are doing fine.
I try memory recall-to-future forecast, but still end up with frostbitten feet from when I was trying to become an eagle. Maybe she is as superior as I am inferior, and vice versa in all the yin-yang ways imaginable.
