It was a Sunday, but it may have been a Thursday. It was cold enough to forget what sweating felt like or it may have been summer. There was a rainbow in the sky or printed on someone’s shirt. There were birds flying toward another patch of sky. Or it may have been empty.
There was a pile of letters on the ground as though a postal worker had fallen and all this paper represented the remains.
Someone sprayed graffiti on a building or fence and it read: Never Fall. In Love.
You had just eaten a lunch of seventeen sandwiches or cold soup or it may have been breakfast time and all you ate were coffee grounds and haunts from sleep.
It was sometime after 8pm. Before midnight and nowhere near 11pm.
Everyone you passed smelled like buttercream and anise. Frosted black licorice. Your tongue was sore from licking itself.
You were not in love for the first time in over a decade.
Your teeth were like picket signs in your mouth in search of a cause to bite into.
Someone may have asked for your phone number. Or your order. Or if you could move aside because you were blocking an entrance.
Did I mention it was cold out?
It was definitely February. Probably March. It wasn’t October.
There was talk of poetry or philosophical medical jargon.
Someone was playing an instrument or it could have been the finely-tuned chorus of harmonized voices in your head.
Nope, definitely some strings.
You were wearing elbows and fingernails.
No one kissed you but you could taste the breath of another on your shoulders.
At some point, your wrist reminded you that time is never important. Numbers only exist for those who can add. Sometimes time is just about what your appetite and eyes call for.
There was a rainbow and it existed in three hundred and thirty-four shades of burgundy.
Aimee Herman 