I walked in at 11:03 PM under the influence of the rose water I gulped down after an ex sent the vase back to me, with eleven thorny roses intact.
Aged by the tincture of time, I staggered into darkness. My palms were greased.
The life coach met me in the alcove of a smoky room with a far-eastern mist. She wore a plaid Burberry monk’s robe, and underneath the hood I saw kind eyes with heavy lids and flapping lashes — meant, I think, to hypnotize a stray man so late on a Wednesday night.
There were Gregorian chants from speakers, white noise from a clock radio, and an empty fish tank filled with algae bubbling intermittently like a dying goldfish.
She told me I had reason to live, which meant I needed to stop smoking, start exercising, and stop crossing the street blindfolded.
We laughed until I cried. Then she rubbed the grease from my palms and read the furrowed lines — the narrative of my life, “the arc of triumph,” I used to call it — highlighting with a styptic pencil to show me where I strayed, and also to heal the thorn wounds.
After one fifteen-minute session, the life coach seemed to understand me.
“I think you’ll be back,” she said with moist lips.
Life is less a hunch. More observation, I thought — and knew I’d be back.
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