Lunch

There is a small crack running across the bridge of my nose. I imagine it is where the cartilage meets the bone. You can't see it, but you can feel it. I was rubbing my finger across it. Sitting in my office and stressing over a phone call I had taken.

The crack across my nose.

Bring everything to a single point of focus. The phone doesn't matter. The words don't matter.

The crack across my nose.

A single point of focus.

"Hey. Martin. You in there?"

I turned around and Sacha was sitting across from me with a raised eyebrow.

"What?" I asked.

"Oh, no, it's cool. I haven't been saying your name for like ten years."

"Shit. Sorry. Kind of... I don't know. Left."

"I noticed. You all right over there buddy?"

"Yeah, okie dokie."

"All right. When are you going to lunch?"

"One-ish I think."

"All right. I am going to have to leave after you get back then."

"For the day?"

"No. Maybe."

"Maybe?"

"Maybe. I mean, who knows. Maybe I'll just never come back. Just ride off into the sunset. You can have my clients and my chair."

"Thanks." I put my feet on my desk and leaned back in my chair and kept thinking about the goddamned phone call and exhaled and wished I exhaled the voice and the words right out of me but they sat immovable, unchangeable. Bricks on my chest. Crack across my nose. Voice in my ears.

A single point of focus.

One came and I took lunch. Drove home. Sunglasses on. Window down. Seeing, feeling nothing. The car squeaks as it pulls into the driveway. Soon it will be broken and I won't be able to fix it and I wonder if I am going to see October, and I think I don't care. The stray cat I feed sometimes is on my porch and I say hello to him and he squeaks out a reply and he comes inside with me. I pour a dish of food for him and a glass of wine for me and I sit on the kitchen floor and watch him eat. Or her. I'm not sure.

I don't know if I'll see October. I don't care.

I don't care.