Chilly Day

Chilly Day


Here you are, and here they are: in camouflage on a weekend
furlough, scoping out the wide variety of female talent. From
rank amateur to well-played skeptic, the ladies walk by until the
rest of the local unit falls in to form a posse of seven. Is it a
typical Sinae*-day? No. The coffee/pastry shop, usually packed
on Saturday is down to two of us. No one, I mean none of the shop
walkers buys anything. Today’s parade is bagless, an early sign,
like snow-poking crocus, of a springtime of heartbreak. Human
desire keeps us on the same course, even if stripped of buying.
We want to mingle, so here come the expats, some lonely, others
paired up. Another sleepless year is a sure bet. Productivity only
matters if you are producing food. Bunned hair atop mega-hottie
stands, pink rose in hand, waiting a while then moving west,
searching for the idiot who caused her boredom. The brown dog
held by the crazy man, gets away, pees on the astro-turf carpet,
enrages the shop manager, is swept up and flees with its homeless
master. Twitching, greasy-haired, dark-skinned landmark is on the
run again. Maybe he finds a warm place to sleep. Someone did up
his hair in corn rows so it doesn’t get straggly. Walkers veer away,
he’s seen it for years. They could learn survival from him, but don’t.


*Sinae- Korean for downtown