There is something about this that embarrasses me more than it should.
It does not happen at night.
It does not happen when I am alone.
It happens when I am sitting across from another person.
Today I was having lunch with a coworker.
Not a friend.
Not an enemy.
Just someone who exists near me eight hours a day.
He was talking about something completely ordinary.
A problem with his car.
A discount at a supermarket.
A show he watched over the weekend.
I nodded.
I even replied.
The right words appeared in the right order.
From the outside it looked like a conversation.
Inside it was something else.
Because at some point I watched him lift his fork.
And I do not know why.
There is no reason.
But I thought about the Master.
Not a scene.
Not an instruction.
Just him.
Like a tiny interruption.
Like a hairline crack appearing in a perfectly painted wall.
I tried to keep listening.
My coworker kept talking.
I kept nodding.
But something had already shifted.
The conversation remained in front of me.
My attention did not.
And that is the embarrassing part.
Not the obsession.
The uselessness of the obsession.
Because it was not even an important memory.
There was no meaningful connection.
No brilliant association.
Nothing.
It simply appeared.
The way a forgotten word appears.
The way a song returns after years of silence.
The Master remained.
While someone explained the price of new tires.
While someone talked about the weather.
While someone complained about traffic.
The Master remained.
And the more I tried to remove the thought, the more room it occupied.
Not more intensity.
More room.
That is different.
Intensity can be endured.
Space cannot.
Because eventually it surrounds everything.
Even the small things.
Especially the small things.
I looked at a folded napkin beside my tray.
And suddenly remembered the exact way he once held a book.
Not the content.
Not the conversation.
Only the position of his fingers.
That was all.
And yet it remained.
Then something worse appeared.
A strange sadness.
Although I am no longer sure sadness is the correct word.
The old sadness had a cause.
It had direction.
It had an argument.
This does not.
This is different.
It feels more like staring at a window for too long without knowing why.
Or walking into a room and forgetting what you came for.
Or realizing you have spent ten minutes looking at a spoon on a table.
It does not hurt exactly.
It does not comfort exactly.
It simply occupies.
And the more I try to describe it, the less it resembles an emotion.
It resembles a presence.
A quiet presence.
Persistent.
Polite.
Terribly polite.
Because it never demands attention.
It does not need to.
It knows it will receive it eventually.
My coworker finished eating before I did.
He picked up his tray.
He left.
The conversation ended.
But the Master did not.
That is the absurd part.
Real people leave.
Conversations end.
Dishes are cleaned.
Lights are switched off.
Days change.
And yet certain presences remain seated in the empty chair.
Waiting.
As though they know something I still do not understand.
And perhaps that is what embarrasses me most.
That the more time passes.
The less I can explain the permanence.
And the more obvious it becomes.
The neck I am not moving it the neck has locked I should…
