the smell of a story

the shower has moved on, carrying its fat droplets with it and leaving a moisture thick enough to see.  a smell of wet asphalt and a hint of cigarette smoke linger in the air, teasing my nostrils.  they hint at a story that is not my own, a story i can never read.

the out-of-context hipster

i sneak my hand around the table and snitch one of nathan's fries.  he doesn't notice, he's too busy wolfing his animal style burger.  i grin to myself, wondering what he would have done if he had caught me.  probably just glared in his 11 year old way.

i happen to glance up and i see a young man.  i study him for the few seconds it takes him to reach his seat at the table next to ours.  something about his face is intriguing.  sandy, tousled hair rests above lean, elegant bone structure.  his blue button-up shirt (chambray?) and the neckcloth lend him an air of "i'm not from around here."

he doesn't look the type, but hey - everybody loves in-n-out.

Mixed Gourmet Fruit

Ignoring the plate nearby, she stabs the fork into the plastic bowl of fruit.  She eats the cantaloupe first because there is too much of it.  Then the honeydew; she likes honeydew.  The blueberry is tasteless and the strawberry is sour.  She sits and stares idly out the window, twirling the fork in her hand.  Vague thoughts about sentences and American lit wander through her mind.  She glances down and finds a piece of mango.  This is something worth savoring.  She digs around for another piece, but there is only one more, so she eats it slowly and thinks about orange fruit and how nice it all is.  Cantaloupe, mangoes, clementines, oranges.  Oranges are redundant.  She tries the pineapple and it is sweet.  Several pieces later, she is snapping the lid back onto the container and reading the label.  "Pineapple (Costa Rica)."  She has a friend from Costa Rica.  There is a punctuation error, it should be "its," not "it's."  People are always putting apostrophes where they don't belong.