a hot air balloon passenger basket

“You’re a hot air balloon passenger basket.” He remembered the words, but not the context. He felt annoyed, recalling the sentence, but couldn’t figure out why, so, he bit his nails, followed by two other bad habits. He looked at a woman he’d seen in the café before. She’d lost a good amount of weight – most of her body, actually. Her head seemed to be misplaced. As if it actually belonged on a small doll with bad skin. Or old skin. Something worn out or burnt a bit. What hadn’t changed was her ass. She had a nice ass. Or a good jean skirt on. “Pair of skirts?” he thought, as he watched her posterior swing behind her and out the door to the car parked just outside the café window. He saw her head staring up the street while her hands held a coffee and unlocked her car door. This all took place behind the window’s translucent blinds, pulled down to fill most the window frame, but for a slight gap at the bottom. Looking at the woman, the texture of the blinds, and the way the sunlight cast across them, made him feel as though he were looking at his own reflection. He knew he wasn’t, but still, he needed to confirm the fact, thinking: “I’m looking straight ahead. She’s looking to the side and up the street. This can’t be my reflection.” He bit his index fingernail until pain burst through the tip – a fire fusing his teeth to his skin – a bit of aliveness. How could all of this, everything here, be his life? He picked up and stumbled through the crowd of café chairs, just to make something happen. Outside, she’d already gone. “Hot air balloon passenger basket.” She’d had a low cut red dress on when she’d said it. Bowing slightly, he looked in the window, under the blinds, back into the café, at the chair he’d just left, which some old man, taller than he, had already piled into.