3-3-14 Ft. Wayne, In

Late afternoon walk through the tundra. Sidewalks a smothered memory of the fall, frosted over with icy layers of winter, it's a choose your own adventure of snow drifts. Just passing through, a sore thumb in shorts shuffling through the powder and brown slush. Thrift store, old music shop piled high with cables and relics of gear curled my lips to a smile. Sifting through preamps and dusty jewel cases, book stores and Asian grocery. The exotic odors carried my senses back to far off lands and other times.
The China buffet, long a hobby of mine seemed warm enough. Inside veneered in faux marble, granite, and a whole quarry of thinly simulated textures. Red, white, and blue lights scream a patriotism only an immigrant could really appreciate. Lost in thought, I pondered the crab on the steam table, the pink/grey tuna under industrious led lighting. People of commerce and science study marine life like the buffet diner studies the orderly rows of greasy bounty. Think they know the dwindling catch is ending up as a red tong fly-by in a Midwest feed trough? Is it wrong to have cheap fish? Should cheap sushi even be a thing? Nevermind that it doesn't even remind me of the real thing... Is it any worse than the overweight girls in the next booth beating out the pop tune playing in the restaurant?
The lights dangle down on long leads from the ceiling, overhead fixtures casting their shadows on the white walls like disembodied scrotum. Red booths, blue collar. I shrugged and dove back to the trough. Does it matter that those shrimp scuttled their way off the mortal coil to dive from freezer to wok and star in a salty, saucy steamtable revue? I shake it off and head back to the table. Empty lemonade and a strange crisp new napkin, scrawled on it a girl's name and number, and "nice tatts." The girls in the next booth conspicuous now more for absence than musical taste, replaced by a family of four. Feeling like a sore thumb again.