May 9, 2025

An old friend was visiting town and I was on my way to meet up with them as I got onto the train. I had in fact spotted them on the street earlier in the day but lost track of them before I got the chance to say hi. When we met up at a coffee shop it felt like we both had an endless amount of questions to ask each other. We talked about our long term plans and I had to admit that I still didn’t really have any. They relayed a story about eating tree bark in the middle of a park. I told them how I had finally gotten around to reading The Stranger.

During a brief lull in the conversation I suddenly remembered that I had left something at home. I jogged through the light drizzle at a moderate pace and took notice of how few cars were on the road today. Several times during my trek I thought about turning back. I hadn’t actually properly communicated what I was doing before I left the table, under the false assumption that I would only be gone for a moment. It didn’t feel like our talk had ended in a particularly conclusive manner either. But alas, I had already ran more than half the distance home.

I popped into the house to pick up a ring of keys from my desk and it bothered me how pointless this excursion was. I didn’t even need these keys and I had ran away from a conversation I was enjoying for them.

It was getting dark when I made my way back to the cafe. The table we were sitting at was predictably empty. I asked the customers nearby if they knew how long ago my friend had left.