Looking around me

There’s a woman in her fifties walking right past me for the second time. She is wearing black pants, a flowery blouse, trendy thick glasses and funky short hair.

There’s a young asian man lying sprawled on a white leather couch, rolling himself over every few minutes, seemingly oblivious to the rest of the world.

There’s a family composed of a big silent woman, a man wearing sandals with almost no hair who has used at least four different languages on his mobile phone in the last half an hour, and three little girls, all of them blond, dressed in pure white and wearing hair bands.

There’s a man in a suit looking bossy, slowly walking in straight lines from one place to the next, sometimes hesitating.

There’s two men in their twenties sitting together and chatting. A taxi pulls over and they stand up. As they walk away one holds the hand of the other. This gives him a glare and shakes his hand free.

There’s a covered black piano and a gurgling fountain. A basketball player. A woman with a kitten.

The taste of the plum and smell of the lilies

A few days ago mom came over for dinner. We cooked some clams and she brought some food from their garden, including some Japanese plums, you know, those plump, yellow, juicy globes that explode in your mouth with the full taste of summer.

Today Isabel and I bought some fresh flowers. The house has been uninhabited for a few years and there are unpleasant odours still hiding in odd corners, so we wanted something fresh but subtly pungent. Isabel chose some lilies.

We returned home at dusk. Isabel walked into the kitchen carrying the bunch of lilies in the bend of her arm and I followed her. As I walked past the fruit bowl, I idly grabbed a plum and brought it to my mouth. In that precise instant, Isabel faced me, and her rotating movement sent a waft of lily scent straight into my face as I bit into the fruit. I guess Isabel saw something in my face, because she asked “what?”.

The case is, that plum tasted like lilies.