The Room above the Noodle Shop

The Room above the Noodle Shop

He passed again today in that slow deliberate way he has of seeming always to be going somewhere else but content as well to be exactly where he is, and I watched this time more closely as he went from shop to shop, corner to corner, passing here or there in some uncommon random way to consider where he was or where he was going or perhaps, even, where he had been;

and I was sure his life was full of stories and adventures of lust and longing and all the lives he’s lived; full of places and people and stories forever changed by his passing; and so I followed as he walked this way from corner to corner and block to block, and with each step the mystery and the marvel grew and grew from large to grand until I was quite sure I could never, even if I lived forever and walked the miles and blocks and corners on my own, know such a life as he must know.

And I found myself falling into that moment just before despair that always seems to follow when we look too closely at our lives compared to others and find them somewhat lacking, and just when I began to fear my life may really be as dismal as one life can be, the man I had been following, admiring, envying stopped at a door set into a nook right beside a noodle shop window, and with a nod to the woman just closing the shades, he took out a key, unlocked the door and began to climb the steps to the top.