sunday reading

The woman in the wedding dress waiting for the bus is called Diane, and we lived in the same apartment building years ago. She was training to be a nurse, and I was in my final year of a PhD in ancient history. She lived across the hall, and we would drink chamomile tea together. Sometimes she would discuss her knowledge of hospital procedures. Other times, I would clumsily fight my way through a passage of ancient Greek or explain the significance of ancient bartering.

Sometimes we would hold hands for no reason or pet her cat at the same time. I had planned to fly to Athens and write my thesis, so the night before I moved out, we had a farewell dinner. After a long meal with wine and the retelling of old stories, we made a promise. With my elbows on the kitchen table, and her fingers skating across the vinyl, we agreed that if we were not married by the time we were forty, we would marry each other. Then we made love. I always wondered what happened to her. Los Angeles is a place of nightmares and fantasies.

-The World Laughs in Flowers, Simon Van Booy