The woman was eating a salad of all things.

I was watching one squirrel chase another and cursing the day I was born.

She said after one particular bite, I don’t understand people like you. At the same time the squirrel doing the chasing got distracted and went home.

I remained, unprotected. I started to think about my life and then stopped. My life was nothing to think too much about. The woman was chewing on weeds and vegetables with her mouth half open. She was beautiful and I couldn’t look at her.

All of this happened in Inconsequential, Oklahoma, for whatever it’s worth.

I’m not sure how we found ourselves there. Surely it had to involve bad directions, a wrong turn, an error in judgment.

There was a time when I appreciated this sort of declaration, what it could mean. I don’t understand people like you could give me a reason to live once upon a time. Back then I could at least hazard a guess or two.

I wanted to tell her people don’t like me, but it isn’t true. Then I wanted to tell her there was no one like me, but that isn’t true, either.

The truth of it is everyone likes me and almost everyone else is exactly like me. I’m about five foot nowhere, maybe two hundred nothing pounds, hair, eyes, shoes, name; nothing at all distinctive.

Even this woman, who was eating a salad, of all things. She knew it full well. Up until recently I’d left this woman alone her whole life. I wanted nothing to do with her.

All of which is to say, I think I knew this woman and I think she meant more to me than anything in the world, but it doesn’t make it right.

I made a gesture when she said what she said about understanding people. The gesture was similar to a gunman holstering his weapon.

How I was able to pull this off is I was eating a hot dog at the time.

The hot dog had on it mustard and onions and relish and was ambrosia to me.

In this particular case, the hot dog was the gun, my pocket the holster.

The woman was stunned into the kind of silence that can last for years, the kind that puts you in the hospital and has people talking about pulling plugs. I remember being troubled by this, how easy it was to break her.

I was already late for my next appointment, but still, I sat there and waited for her to come to. First I tried splashing some water in her face. Then I opened her mouth to see if she was choking on a tomato or radish, but it looked clear to me, the airway.

I did consider taking her to the hospital when she stopped breathing, but I didn’t know where they’d have one in Oklahoma and didn’t want to ask for directions. Also, I didn’t think they would be able to help once we’d get there.

There are probably all kinds of lessons to learn from this, not the least of which is geographical.

Another has to do with the squirrel, I’m sure, but by this time the squirrel was long gone and after everything that’s happened I don’t even think about him anymore.

This story originally appeared in Sententia.

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