The morning bit: I spent two hours sticking rainbow fish on blue papered walls with matching cornflower blue scotch tape.
(here's a fish, there's a fish, everywhere a fish fish~)
treasure chests, library silence, markers scratching, people remarking, balloons popping, breath stopping.
Indeed, what absolute. undeniable Joy. senior hall decorating day was. Through construction papers and the desire to squash underclassmen in a schoolwide contest for tackiest floor, that was our wondrous connection to one another.
(everywhere a [paper fish], a [paper fish]
yet no [Fish], no [Fish]. )
Outside, the autumn leaf took me back to that June afternoon.
"Honey, honey up in the trees fields of flowers deep in his dreamsA day of unsuccessful sweet hunting. Crumbs cupcake shop locating mission: failed. No sweets. No candies.
"Might as well make the best of it", M.Cat had said.
Yes, let's.
No candies, but we'll take Manhattan eye candies in Bryant Park as substitutes.
We walked. A flutter breezed by. An angry taxi driver probably honked somewhere down the street and I sped up across the light.
"You think it's gonna rain again?" M.Cat looked up. That was probably what she had said, I was too busy looking at my shoes trying to find a connection between the word "shoe" and the flutter. Two minutes and we reached the park entrance, greeted by the hazy lights from the old carousel. Rainbow lights in summer dusk.
And Red.
"--what's red? the clouds?", she asked.
"Red? Nothing's red, should we sit down? Yeah. Let's."
"Why here?" She was puzzled at our seating choice: next to the garbage can. I was too.
.
.
"Ohh, I see why." She glanced back and smile.
Red.
Flutter.
"Lead them out to sea by the east Honey, honey food for the bees"The stranger with red shoes had taken a seat on the rain damped park chair diagonally across from us.
Glance one, about a 28 degree angle separated our tables. Not too far away either. Brown fitted jacket, straight jeans, tussled hair--dark, probably.
"Let me see that?" M.Cat motioned to my recently purchased international idiom book. I gave it to her.
Glance two, maple brown hair, tussled still, mid 20's, 'lax face, yet anxious somehow. Why.
"Hahaha this is hilarious, 'to drown the fish' means 'to lose by deliberate confusion' in French", M.Cat points enthusiastically to an example phrase on some odd number page. I laughed. She laughed. Some time passed before my eyes wandered again. Glance three, on his phone, head tilted down, anxious still, texting now. Who.
"Mmm, gorgeous, seems frustrated though. Been here for a while texting away. who do you think--?" I started, and she read my mind.
M.Cat's eyes lit up with the usual string of misplaced empathy.
"Ohh, what if he's waiting for someone?", she began emphatically.
"a someone or
the Someone?"
"You know, his girlfriend. and what if he's waiting and she's not coming..."
"A face like that does not deserve to get stood up". A superficial fact.
"Or maybe she couldn't make it because it's about to rain," she started to make excuses for the imaginary girlfriend of the imaginary scenario we had envisioned for the red shoe stranger.
Honey, honey out on the sea in the doldrums thinking of me"Mmhmm, yeah. could be. Or while getting caught in this pre-storm traffic on her way here, she struck up a conversation with her unusually interesting taxi cab driver and felt a stronger connection in that ten minute chat with an absolute stranger than all those supposed heart-felt midnight conversations with her boyfriend"
"--and she's texting him a line of explanation each time the traffic light hits red, to let him down easy and all, explaining why it's better she should just continue riding the cab straight to home? Haha."
Me on dry land thinking of he honey, honey not next to meWe cracked up audibly over our sweet-deprived yet overactive imagination. If only cab drivers can be that interesting. They might be. But somewhere deep in the recess of my mind I must have still been angry at not being able to find the cupcake shop to delve deeper on the possible wonderful hidden personality of NY cab drivers.
"This is fun. Let's make up background stories for all these other strangers here."
"Alrighty. That middle age man over there." M.Cat nudged her head to the direction of the 40 something years-old man who had just passed us laughing our heads off. I 'dropped' my book and turned around to pick it up. Well-dressed, newspaper in hand, a grave expression, a bit of a furrowed set of eyebrows sat on top of harsh weary eyes that still held a hint of softness to them.
Or so I (over)analyzed.
Even if he wanted toeven if he wanted to even if he wanted to "Probably comes here everyday to unwind after a long day from his tiring corporation job. Days after days turned into weeks after weeks which turned into years after years of doing mindless work for a mind-less boss for a mindless paycheck--"
"and his children began to compete with Mr. Paycheck for their father's attention, of which he would say that if he were to win a millionaire dollar he would completely quit work and resume his fatherly duties"
"Then one day--"
I zoned out. The red shoe stranger was looking at us. Then, somehow I was an entity looking at myself and the scene and how our game was getting a tad over-imaginative, and that maybe we should stop before the rain starts to pour and dampen our laughters. But it was fun, I had to admit. I zoned back in.
do you think he'll come back?would he come back? oh no..."--those lucky numbers he threw away. Only to see it appear on the newspaper in which he's reading now. So he's very very disappointed in his inability to tell his boss off," M.Cat finished triumphantly.
"What lucky numbers? Lucky numbers for the lottery that his wife gave him but he threw away saying he doesn't waste breath on such thing? But now he found out he could have won?"
"Err, wow, that works too! That woman and those kids next--"
A strong gush of wind rippled over the trees. A scary apocalyptic rush filled Bryant Park and the hazy carousel light became glaring against the darkness. I suddenly realized it was either getting dark quite rapidly, or it was my fast-foward perception of the time that had frozen during our conversation.
Glance four, the red shoe stranger had left.
"We'll do this again some other time," I promised myself and M.Cat.
Honey, honey out on the seain the doldrums waiting for meme in my boat searching for heHoney, honey food for the bees"-------------------------------------
Takoyaki Power
Tiramisu power
Antioxidant power
Breakfast power
True
