The room smelled like cumin bread. It was fresh from the bakery. A three-quarter block walk from his apartment, which always felt too short―hardly qualifying as an excursion. Only far enough to be a purgatory, between the rest of the city and its domestic version. It didn’t count as anything really. When he recalled what he did that day, it wouldn’t suffice as an event. At best an ancillary detail, distinctive in its normalcy. Only so many things can have happened to you on a day where you remember buying cumin bread. Memorable now only for its current presence on the table, warm enough to soften butter.
It’s only after three slices from the left corner have taken shelter in his stomach that the decision comes to him to walk into town. To go over the hill and through the tunnel on the two-way bike path running beside the highway to a coffee house that will charge tourist prices for what the machine on the counter next to him can brew right now.
He goes mostly to participate in the ambience of the place. To look at the turntable and the aptly disheveled pile of nineties culture magazines sitting un-perused on the table in the corner, to regard the digital prints of neon photographs posted on walls the color of cream left out too long. He goes to buy a pastry and watch its fat settle familiarly into brown paper as he anticipates the crumbful shape of its impending absence. He goes to breathe in the smells, to reconnect with those parts of himself that still accept comfort.
He goes to have a destination for his walk, something to organize its kilometers around. The land he moves over used to be cow pastures. There are enough people who still remember it as such. Its central character feels unchanged, as if it spontaneously grew one long brush stroke of asphalt that kept going until it had traced out an urban nerve system. The city has a soft gravity from this distance; suggesting that, when you account for everything else, things naturally move towards it. Cars pass in a rhythm that immediately begins to fade out. His quads tighten as his feet grapple the pavement, swinging his body forward with each step. The landscape is patently unconcerned with all of this movement.
It’s just as bright out when he gets home. The wind grazes his skin in just the same way, a coolness lingering on its surface. The brown paper bag―greased and twice-folded in his jeans’ back right pocket―the only sign that he made the trip out. Not much more of a story than buying cumin bread.
Restless energies pool slowly together to greet him as he closes the door. The textures of the lobby seconds earlier are already lost, with their kind assurance that he is still in the process of arriving. He locks the door, removes his shoes with the opposite heels, sheds his jacket onto a stray chair, plugs his phone into the charger in the kitchen, finally breaks this continuous motion to throw the bag in the trash away under the sink.
The loaf is still on the table. He’s relieved he didn’t forget to seal the bag. Placing it in the fridge carefully, he loiters a beat, letting his gaze be drawn to the oat milk, hot sauce, and peanut butter, gathered somehow inconspicuously inside the door.
He needs pesto for tonight. He bought the white beans and everything. He’s got to get the pesto. The good kind with cashews and parmesan and olive oil settled at the top so that you don’t have to refrigerate before opening. This is a thing he’s doing now, getting the pesto. It’s an excursion. It’s an event. He’ll go to the mall to do it. Why not? There’s a store there. He can see a matinee movie and put the jar in the cup holder. He’s got time for that. People see movies alone. Better yet, he could call someone. Get the pesto with them. Make conversation that follows wide curves as they weave through the aisles, even though they only have to go to the one. They can see the movie together. Talk about it afterwards. He can have them over for the white beans and pesto. Make an afternoon into evening out of it. Why does he never call people in advance? Make actual plans. Follow through on them. Repeat the process. It’s not that much work.
He’ll call them. If they don’t pick up the first time, he’ll call them again. If they don’t pick up that time, he’ll leave a voicemail and text them and head over to the mall. He’ll be doing something. He’ll get the pesto. He can toast the cumin bread and soak up the fat left on the plate with its slices. Just one or two. He’s had enough carbs today already. Too many carbs. Maybe he’ll skip the toast. And, in any case, go for a run tomorrow. He could use a run. He could run right now. He needs to get the pesto. He’ll get the pesto. He’ll put on his shoes and jacket right now and go get the pesto. He needs to call them. He’ll call them on the walk there. Call twice and then the voicemail and the text message. He already decided that. He’ll go.