No place like, not even close

There’s something about all this which somehow makes me sad.




The lamplight glowing, hearth-orange under a dusky, darkening sky. The cars in rows, the same yet not the same, reflecting all degrees of brightness, covered in all degrees of dust. The quiet shops, quieter homes, each fluorescing, some in neon, too, yet blending one and all into an innocuous suburbia.

In the restaurant where we were, the people were alternately raucous and silent in the comfort of their familiarity. The tables, the chairs, the small red altar above the kitchen doorway were all theirs, like land to squatters who squat long enough. The children ran in and out and all about, as the parents’ orders streamed from memory, not menus.

I’ve done all that before, sat in those cars, owned the room, laughed aloud, sighed contented, been that child who shrieked as she ran and somehow lost her knee-high stockings too.

It’s just that…I’ve never done it here, and there’s really nothing that makes you feel quite so far away from home as people who are plainly not.