We go to the same place every night, and I sit with my head in my hands.
Outside, a man heckles for a taxi that drives past, throwing him a puddle. He doesn’t move, and his thumb doesn’t waver.
I lift my head and there’s four drinks on the table and a bowl of peanuts, which you are mindlessly eating.
Tonight there is something missing, something I have not thought to look at before.
I leave the table; I’m going to look for it, even though I know I won’t find it. It’s not in this place, the same place we go every night. I’m coming to sit back down now.
I see it in you, for the first time, I see it, and you see it in yourself, and we take our glasses, two of the four from the table, now in our hands, and drink in the happiness of our mutual recognition.
The man outside is still waiting for a taxi. He doesn’t see it, and I want him to see it, but he doesn’t and secretly I think I know we’re happy about it.
He’s going to give up and get the bus, or walk home, or call a friend. Maybe he won’t go home at all. Any one of these choices is possible and none of them matter, to us
in the regular place that we go to every night, seeing and drinking to and sharing in the knowledge of our seeing.