SQN - Sine Qua Non - Issue Two - Journal - Page 52
SINE QUA NON
and somehow it seemed wrong to just throw it out.
|en, one night, you walk down to |e Lambrose Diner where the cofee is bad and
the tuna melt is amazing for an amazing tuna melt and a bad cup of cofee. |at9s when you
see the girl. Not the girl who walked out. Not the girl with the backpack full of belongings
and the trail of debilitating debt left in her wake like the detritus of storm-crushed Carnival
Cruise. |e other girl. |e girl.
|e part of you that studied philosophy a long time ago starts to compose sentences
about the archetype of girl, about the whole Platonic Girl Ideal, although the ideas you have
about this girl are not wholly platonic. She sits with a man and she smiles when she talks, so
you try not to stare, but that is not easy. |at is not easy at all.
She wears those boots that women wear, the ones that come up above the calf but not
quite to the knee, the ones that make you think of Amelia Earhardt and, for no reason that
you have been able to ogure out despite discussing it in therapy, of Louise DelMacher from
third grade who came very close to kissing you in the cloak room before the bell rang and she
ran back out to the class. She also has a ongerless glove on one hand, like the ones hackers
wear in refrigerated rooms full of bleeding-edge computers in movies from the late nineties;
she doesn9t wear the one glove to be quirky. She does it because she9s taken of the other one
and set it aside so she can wrap her bare hand around her cofee cup. But the unintentional
quirkiness is better than any intentional quirkiness could possibly have been anyway.
What the man looks like doesn9t matter. She matters. Only she matters. With hair the
exact color of perfect girl hair. She sips her cofee and her lips squeeze in as she swallows and
then widen into a smile. Her eyes almost catch yours before you go back to not seeming as
though you9re staring, but when you glance back it seems as though she might be not seeming
as though she9s staring at you just as much. It might be a nickering projection of your olm-fed
imagination. She might actually not be staring at you, but the more you think about it, the
more it seems as though she might be not seeming as though she9s staring at you intentionally.
She is beautiful. She is too beautiful. She is much too beautiful.
You can only eavesdrop in moments when the sound dies down in the diner, but from
what you can gather, she something, something, something, forty-three pages in and then she
had trouble onding a something. Also, the something has been making a funny noise but she
doesn9t know anyone who knows how to ox those. You wonder if those are something you
might know how to ox. You turn sadly inward for a moment, realizing just how short that
particular list is likely to be. You wonder if she9s forty-three pages into reading or into writing
something. You wonder if she9s trying not to look as though she9s staring at you right now as
you look at your cofee, trying not to look as though you9re staring at her.
Eventually you are out of tuna melt and have had too much cofee. You get up and walk
home in the chill night air. You notice on the way that you are cold and wonder if that can
be an indication that something important is happening or has just happened or is about to
happen. |en you realize three things. |ing one is that you have left your jacket at the diner.
|ing two is that you do not want to be perceived as forgetful or bumbling by this beautiful
girl-haired girl whom you have begun to think of as the girl. |ing three is that you have not
turned around to retrieve the jacket because you would rather walk home cold and lose a
favored article of clothing than risk having her perceive you as forgetful or bumbling.
You get home and you will not realize until later that you do not ask the stick in a vase
how you9re feeling. You know exactly how you9re feeling. You9re feeling chilled from the night
air, but a little sweaty nonetheless. You9re feeling excited and intrigued and beguiled. You9re
feeling jittery, although you suspect that9s from all the cofee, and you9re feeling a little bit
surprised by your casual internal use of the word
