Almost home
After isolation, you look comfortably weathered – your beard grown across your face, like moss. We meet at my cafe, a sacred place. You save your one coffee for me. A year of virtual living; public schools and home schooling, hippie food and Sunday church sessions with your family when you’re an atheist – things we could have talked about pre-pandemic. It’s something. Not enough. It’s never enough. I’m thinking of moving. Sydney doesn’t have the right kind of community. I drop this casually, before you look at your watch or your phone – then, strident – as if it’s purely my life I’m talking about. You fail my test. I take refuge in business talk, the only place we share an agenda. The room feels unbearably hot. The air con is broken the owner says, rearranging the flowers in the vase between us, for the second time. I pretend I don’t know her, that I don’t come here every day for food and solace, that I don’t know this space is ruined now. Afterwards, you pay and for once I don’t argue. You throw out a story about your sister. We kiss and as I walk away, my heart falls, unexpectedly, out of my chest and flops onto the pavement. I almost trip. As I kneel to pick it up and gather the scattered pieces of my identity —drivers licence, health card, bank cards – ashamed of the spectacle, I look back to see if you noticed. Your head is already in your phone. I hear you calling your wife, to tell her you’ll be home soon.
