Lavateria

I'd begun to feel like a stalker, but i couldn't help myself. I was back at the Lavateria again, sitting on the floor slumped against a washing machine, staring at the one on the corner directly opposite me.

To the casual observer, it was nothing special; just the average, every day coin-operated Speed Queen- super capacity. To the slightly-more-observant observer, it was the only machine in the place that still only cost seventy five cents. The rest had been raised to a dollar twenty five.

To me, it was our washing machine. Ours. I said it aloud, to taste it in my mouth. Ours. Saying it didn't bring back the taste of him.

I pretended to wonder if he ever came here to look at this machine and reminisce the way i did, knowing damn well that he didn't. As often as i found myself sitting in this spot with a lit, unsmoked cigarette slowly burning itself to ashes between my fingers, i'd have seen him if he did.

I pretended to wonder if he ever tried to recall my taste in his mouth the way i did his, knowing damn well that he didn't. I was just temporary. I was an amusement. A distraction to occupy the fortyfiveish minutes it took for his clothes to dry. I was a magazine, lying on a table top in a dentist's office: there to pass the time, and then to be discarded and forgotten once the time had been passed. I wondered briefly if the magazines recalled every person who caressed their flimsy, gaudy jackets, however briefly.

I stood up, stubbed out my cigarette, and the thought along with it.