The Weather Report – January 19, 2015
Bolton Hill, Baltimore, Maryland, United States
High: 42℉
Low: 29℉
Sunrise: 7:24 a.m.
Sunset: 5:12 p.m.
Humidity: 74%
Dewpoint: 30°
Moon Phase: Waning Crescent
You should wear: The bones of your ancestors around your torso, if available (the bones).
You’re going to feel: Sometimes you see a dog tied up at the corner of a store, looking through the window with pushed back ears and a worried face. Its owner doesn’t come back in the time between you noticing the dog and you walking past it.
Plentiful sunshine. Winds WNW at 10 to 20 mph.
☁
In the Bolton Hill coffee shop, you look up from the bagel in your winter hands to watch an elementary-school-aged girl walk in with her slightly younger brother, followed by another young-looking human, but older than the first two, older enough to be a father.
You assume he belongs to them. The three stand silently as the line at the counter goes five four three two one. After ordering her spinach grilled havarti breakfast sandwich, the girl child takes a seat next to you. She looks ahead at her father who had followed her, now sitting across from her, across from you as well, but one over, too. She describes the state of her house plant, using words like “savage” and “distant” and “showy” to describe its mannerisms, as if it is an organism that can follow her around or leave her alone or laugh or die according to time and space and general satisfaction. The father nods, listening attentively though you notice one eye is half closed. You think this could be the result of a stroke or maybe, you figure, faces just look this way sometimes, sometimes faces are different when they are on other people. It is then you realize the younger brother isn’t inside the cafe anymore and that he was never a younger brother, or son, to begin with. At least not one of theirs. Behind the counter, a bell goes off and then a buzzer goes off and a cushioned voice mumbles, “Apagar, apagar,” and then you don’t hear the buzzing anymore. The girl now explains to her father the meaning of love, that it is not hard to break a heart. “Just wait for the very specific look in their eyes,” she says. “By this point it is already breaking. The point after that is the one I have made.” Instruct, instruct, instruct, she is saying. Respond, respond, respond. The young father nods and absentmindedly touches his chin, taking notes behind the single, half-closed eyelid.
Sarah Jean Alexander wrote a book called Wildlives. She lives in Brooklyn, NY.
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