11th Street. I’m digging in my backpack for a pencil probably when a person passing me calls out. “Heh are you the guy that works over there? [Points in the direction from which I’ve just come.] Do you still work there?” (I make sounds of assent. I recognize him.) “And you still walk home, what is it, ten miles?” “Three — three miles,” I say. “Amazing,” he says, as if three miles were as many as ten, “just . . . amazing…”
What’s truly amazing, I think as I leave, is that I believe that me and this very same person had this exact same encounter about ten years ago. Exactly the same only two blocks to the East where my route went then. He looks greyer now and I know I do, which gives an “eternal return” type absurdity to the event.
.i`` * ^ / . . . . . ` `~ 