Minneapolis, MN

“Last summer when I was held up at gunpoint I was enrolled in his class.” She is wearing all black, paired with Doc Marten boots and magenta lip stick. Her black earrings are long and dangle, swaying slightly with her hand gestures. What catches my attention isn’t so much that she had been held at gunpoint but the annoyance of being enrolled in the particular class at the moment of robbery. My guess is Geology.

We’re sitting outside of a corner café under patio umbrellas facing the same direction at two different tables. She is sitting with a curly haired woman who is wearing large sunglasses and chewing on the straw of her blended mocha, nodding along. She may very well be asleep.
They are both on cell phones.

In settings like these, for about two second, I feel a rage creep through my body. Fingers curl into my hand, my jaw tightens, lips twisting together firmly. Whenever I see two people on cell phones within the same frame of vision, I have an impulsive tendency to assume they are speaking to each other. I lose all faith in humanity for those two seconds and then cave, realizing that with so many people in this world, it might actually be someone in a different city, state even. That, yes, some people use the phone when they are in other states.

I prefer carrier pigeons.