Here I am, today, forty-four years old, in the building cafeteria, eating a sandwich so tasteless that I have to look down to remember what it is made of.

            A surprise comes over the radio. A song carries me back to my adolescence. “Killing me softly”. Was it by Aretha Franklin? I never did know.

            Me at eighteen. Going out to dance from time to time, with a group. Down in the lower town, around Olivos. The place may have been Enamour. Late, two or three in the morning. After six fast songs there was a slow one. Starting to dance with Graciela, knowing that nothing was going to happen because it never did, why should it. My body so alive. My belt touching her wide belt. The sweat on her neck aroused me. Holding her by the waist, not even able to imagine a sexual relationship because I was a virgin, but feeling it. The heat, the smells, the desires, the fears.

            The music continues, of course those songs were long and seemed even longer.

            Where are you today, Graciela? Are you having lunch now? How far away are you?

            The song is coming to an end, Bill comes over, he wants to know whether it’s all added up right.

            Yeah, it’s added up right, Bill, but not what you think.

This story appears in Still…life, Mosaic Press, Canada. Copyright David Mibashan.