Written with my Thursday night group with the prompts:  waffles at the Lucky Café, sure you’re ready for this, a little bit of sun, I’ve never had any goals, it doesn’t matter, I want my God scrambled, no ham, three daisies, counterintuitive, do you smell that, eyes silent, for fourteen days, dawdled, if I could see, 35 years ago, 54 holes, killing Tom wouldn’t stop him, love yourself first, like any other

“Do you smell that?” he asked me as we rounded the corner, and I had to smile.  

“Cinnamon, vanilla, maple syrup—am I right?”  

He ushered me into the Lucky Café, ordered the Belgian waffles, two plates of scrambled eggs, vegan sausage, no ham.  It was an opulent spread.  I was young and eager to be impressed.  While waiting for our breakfast, he slipped three daisies out of the vase on the counter and began to weave them into my braids.  I had waist long hair back then, and his ministrations made me giggle.  Oh, he was a charmer, and I couldn’t help but wonder if he’d leave me crying.  The waffles came and he ordered extra strawberries on the side.  Enjoy it while it lasts, I told myself.

Tom was a welcome tonic from the MBA/suit types I’d been dating since college.  “Goals?” he echoed.  “I’ve never had any set goals.  I know it’s counterintuitive; I believe in setting intention, and in paying attention, watching if I can see—you know—what evolves.”

He spoke in a rhythmic patter, as if his musings were song lyrics, gems he was spontaneously spouting for future collection.

“In essence,” he concluded as he sipped his coffee, “it doesn’t matter.  Few things do.  Nothing matters at all except learning to love you!  Love yourself.  First.  Love yourself.”

I watched him with silent eyes.  He seemed unconcerned as I dawdled over breakfast, saying little.

“When you’re done,” he announced, “we’ll go out for a little bit of sun.”

I agreed for 14 days, and 54 holes in the fabric of space and time.  We lived a lifetime, 35 years ago, and 35 years into the future.  We were musicians and poets, shopkeepers and accountants, social workers, politicians, mystics, and care givers for babies and the elderly.  He watched me give birth a half dozen times, and every six months he’d decide to die.  I even shot him once in a fit of rage when I caught him cheating on me, but killing Tom wouldn’t stop him.  For me he was that one, that focal point that twisted my path in a different direction.  But every time I met him, there were waffles, there were strawberries, there was the Lucky Café.  

“I’ll take my God scrambled,” he says to the wait staff each time we sit down at the counter, and then it begins again.  He turns to me.  “Are you sure you’re ready for this?” he asks.

“Hit it,” I say again and again.

Photo by Tangerine Newt on Unsplash