Bush

     Cars honk as I walk down the sidewalk and observe attractive people sitting across from each other at restaurant tables. The cool air is punctuated by drifting exhaust fumes. My sweaty cotton shirt sticks to my chest as an unfortunate reminder of an unsatisfactory spin class.

     (Forgive me, but straight men should not be allowed to instruct spin class. Can we just say that that is a women-and-gays-only lane? As a compromise, perhaps a mandatory training course in pop playlist curation and positive motivational yelling could be offered for any aspiring straight-dude-spin-class-instructors. But I digress.)

     As I turn onto my street, I go on mental vacation. I feel the volume of the week’s anxieties begin to dissipate. I tell myself to touch the fabric umbrella sitting outside a small shop, to remind myself that things feel like something. I pause at the next building and stand at its corner with my hand on the wood siding, a strange feeling, and imagine myself as a faceless woman in some novel standing at a bus stop.

     I decide that I am going to take a long time to get home. I proceed to walk almost as slowly as I can down the block, feeling all the parts of my feet shift inside my New Balance running shoes.

     I mentally review the wrongdoings of others, notice the silhouettes of people passing by, and mistake the cool light being cast by a streetlamp as moonlight. I imagine the oddity I must present to people who see me, a zombie-monk hybrid in workout clothes. I imagine them imagining me, and their hastily made conclusion that I must be a troubled man of some kind.

     I tend to overestimate the interest of others in me.

     Closer to my apartment, I pass by a bush that has overgrown its wire fence, and notice a single green stem with healthy leaves sticking out from all the rest. I pluck it.

     It now sits in water, next to a single flower, in a tiny glass vase on my windowsill. I like to look over and appreciate its little beauty, when I have the time.