At the cafe, all the corners of the napkin were upside down. A girl with orange hair placed a steaming cup of tea on the table while above me I heard a bird rustling, then taking flight. Later, in the dark, almost asleep, my mind was counting the shadows and the thieves.
When I read a book in private later, on the train, the musty smell of the bookstore rushed into my nostrils. The clerk laughed, which stirred his short beard, when I asked if the book was fiction or non-fiction. The letters on the side of it read "Titian."
I wrote my number on the napkin, in ballpoint pen, next to the incense. Love was a 10-sided dice. I hoped he would call, yet I didn't want to talk. I wanted to hear the radio frequency in the bookstore again, to undress my intellect and bathe in the static of a thousand minds humming on the shelves. With the pictures stored in my mind, even with my eyes closed, I could write an entire novel on a napkin, if the light was right.
