Where did we meet?

You were a customer at the store I started work at 17 months ago and within the first 4 days of seeing you come by I knew you were going to be a regular. There was nothing fancy about your casual shorts and pale pink sweater and blonde-crusted hair and pink white skin and surgical mask over the bottom half of your face. There was nothing grand about the way you slumped in and headed for the beverages at the back of the cramped store with sunglasses on and hands sorting through the boxes and boxes and boxes of juice and soy milk.

You approached the cash till where I sat at watching you and like the past 4 days you took out your brown and red wallet and crumpled papers between your white fingers and your fingernails tapped against a gold credit card that peeked through the red and green notes and you threw down a couple more coins and you took your milk and left.

You looked like you were in a hurry but then again didn’t everyone in the world look like they were important and rushing and puzzling a living? You didn’t hail a cab when you left the store after crawling out of the dark alley it was in sandwiched between tall glass buildings and you didn’t wear cologne so you weren’t a businessman and you weren’t a student.

It was your 27th day visiting the store and the mask was no longer an accessory you liked. Your face was bare and white and what I think people call pale but your lips were plump and rosy and pink and nothing like the dark circles under your eyes that you crusted concealer over to hide and your nose bulged at the tip and I thought I don’t think he’s wearing a vest.