A Place Where He and His Wife Used to Eat Before They Were Who They Became
He finished his solitary lunch, taking his time with what was left of his bowl of black beans, with slurping the final spoonfuls of the spicy fish soup, wiping the mercurochrome red of the broth from his lips with the paper napkins, taking a long drink of the cerveza, which was still cold, as the restaurant -- he had never been there at this time of day! -- began to empty, the afternoon lengthening and darkening, snow outside the windows falling in airy, fat flakes, the parking lot filling with it, the stockyard beyond filling with it, the stacks of boxcars in the stockyard collecting the snow on their rooftops, the light changing, the tempo of the waitresses' movements becoming more languid and patient, their staccato speech patterns slowing, their laughter more easy, less guarded, the mood turning from public to private, a performance concluded, the sound in a kitchen unseen behind him of plates being washed, of plates quietly clanking together as they were put in a rack, stored away, to be brought out again sometime later, the sound of a door being unhurriedly opened, swinging closed without another immediately following it and opening again, the last of the last group of men in suits rising from their wooden chairs from the last occupied table by the windows and leaving, chair legs scraping the floor, hands leaving cash on the table for a tip, a collar being snapped up as the front door opened, a remark on finding good Mexican food in Detroit and the snow, look at this snow, his little red rental car, the last on the parking lot, its top and its windows covered in snow, with nowhere, nowhere, absolutely nowhere he had to be -- si, another cervaza -- no work to be done until tomorrow, no meetings, no calls, no children, no reading, no answering questions, no paying bills, no dinner plans, no dishes, no what's-wrong-with-this or why-isn't-this-working, no what-is-it or what's-wrong-with-you-tonight, no talks about pets or the kids or more kids, no nothing, no arguing, no cajoling, no fighting for the space to have a thought, just the last of the fiery soup, the sound of his spoon on the side of the bowl of black beans and rice, the last of it, and the beer, and the snow burying the parking lot, burying the car, and somewhere, in all that, he found a space, like a quiet sustained note being held by a trumpet, a moment of peace that he didn't want to let get away.
I had a hard time getting to 250 words, but this is what I came up with:
He was on the bus, and he hated to see a large folding knife clipped into someone else’s pocket—these large knives, sometimes brushed stainless steel, sometimes matte black, folded up into themselves with their full serrations or partial serrations, their sheep’s foot shapes or their talon shapes, their notches or their holes for flicking open with a calloused thumb, though maybe the thumb wasn’t calloused but a smooth and soft one, a thumb with a little red eye on its side and a little pink mouth that had no teeth in it, just gums, just softish gums one could push to one’s face and feel a little suck—so he fell against someone, a man with canvas pants, and stole his clip knife, using a pickpocket method he learned from a video online.
A Place Where He and His Wife Used to Eat Before They Were Who They Became
He finished his solitary lunch, taking his time with what was left of his bowl of black beans, with slurping the final spoonfuls of the spicy fish soup, wiping the mercurochrome red of the broth from his lips with the paper napkins, taking a long drink of the cerveza, which was still cold, as the restaurant -- he had never been there at this time of day! -- began to empty, the afternoon lengthening and darkening, snow outside the windows falling in airy, fat flakes, the parking lot filling with it, the stockyard beyond filling with it, the stacks of boxcars in the stockyard collecting the snow on their rooftops, the light changing, the tempo of the waitresses' movements becoming more languid and patient, their staccato speech patterns slowing, their laughter more easy, less guarded, the mood turning from public to private, a performance concluded, the sound in a kitchen unseen behind him of plates being washed, of plates quietly clanking together as they were put in a rack, stored away, to be brought out again sometime later, the sound of a door being unhurriedly opened, swinging closed without another immediately following it and opening again, the last of the last group of men in suits rising from their wooden chairs from the last occupied table by the windows and leaving, chair legs scraping the floor, hands leaving cash on the table for a tip, a collar being snapped up as the front door opened, a remark on finding good Mexican food in Detroit and the snow, look at this snow, his little red rental car, the last on the parking lot, its top and its windows covered in snow, with nowhere, nowhere, absolutely nowhere he had to be -- si, another cervaza -- no work to be done until tomorrow, no meetings, no calls, no children, no reading, no answering questions, no paying bills, no dinner plans, no dishes, no what's-wrong-with-this or why-isn't-this-working, no what-is-it or what's-wrong-with-you-tonight, no talks about pets or the kids or more kids, no nothing, no arguing, no cajoling, no fighting for the space to have a thought, just the last of the fiery soup, the sound of his spoon on the side of the bowl of black beans and rice, the last of it, and the beer, and the snow burying the parking lot, burying the car, and somewhere, in all that, he found a space, like a quiet sustained note being held by a trumpet, a moment of peace that he didn't want to let get away.
I had a hard time getting to 250 words, but this is what I came up with:
He was on the bus, and he hated to see a large folding knife clipped into someone else’s pocket—these large knives, sometimes brushed stainless steel, sometimes matte black, folded up into themselves with their full serrations or partial serrations, their sheep’s foot shapes or their talon shapes, their notches or their holes for flicking open with a calloused thumb, though maybe the thumb wasn’t calloused but a smooth and soft one, a thumb with a little red eye on its side and a little pink mouth that had no teeth in it, just gums, just softish gums one could push to one’s face and feel a little suck—so he fell against someone, a man with canvas pants, and stole his clip knife, using a pickpocket method he learned from a video online.