Searching for Context

My initial reaction was a slight disgust mixed with disorientation, although to be exacting, I suppose simultaneity is unlikely and it is out of convenience the memory becomes compressed. Yet, I do know that the first truck was chock full of Christmas trees, which was immediately followed by another to-the-gills with ears of corn headed for the cannery. My head was dancing from the seasonal incongruity of elsewhere as a habit of mind.

It is not so much two directions at this point, but more a choice of themes, the easier a matter of temporality. The more difficult will have to wait, and with a little luck be prompted as we progress through the former's telling.

For there was a tell, her feigned surprise not it; instead, my too quick recognition of the voice a millisecond before my eyes could match it up. Yes, I had already seen her and decided it best to avoid any sort of conversation in the grocery line. Fifteen items or less would not be express enough. Now, whether she knew that I knew, she might have the advantage, for poker players are no match for boozers when it comes to sizing up responses. I did brief-and-pleasant and still found a way to gently spurn. "Just too busy. I'm sure you understand." is a recently discovered tactic, and close kin to the academe's "You surely must be aware of A's work on Z." All most likely not lost on her.

Oh, I suppose we could have conversed in code:

 — How's Joe?

— The same.

— Shame. The same for you as well?

The outcome would have been the same and the check out clerk would not have been any wiser save for vanishing smiles. Or, it could have gone like this:

— How are Joe's tremors?

— Gone.

The smiles would remain but then I would have to listen the following Friday when the garbage truck comes by in order to verify. And what if it were as she said?  Even if I heard the clink of bottles, what would that prove? How does one blot out the blotto (I could not resist and should be ashamed that I am not above such) of the past?

And there we have it. If I remember correctly, back home the sweet corn was gone by August.