stop along the path of no direction

whilst perusing the gallery o’ conditioners of

air,

a hand comes flying up toward him,

insistently shaking & uttering the man’s name

as if he is supposed to remember---

“john doe here, how are you?” remarks the man,

a salesman with tag on shirt,

quick on the chase of a prospective customer over

their way from the appliances to the

big screen TVs &

a bit bewildered, looking up to recall the face

possibly, a face to match a name already said &

suddenly the man being handshaked

remembers this guy from his

teenage years---

the man had flowing red hair back then,

said his brother was a supermodel &

no doubt, he had gotten the residual ladies as a

result,

heard back then that he had a great romance with

Lucy who went Swimming quite a bit in north

Dakota &

though his hair had been shaved, he was still

that tall skinny red haired guy whose eyes bulged

out of his head, regardless of how what kind of

chemicals his mind was racing with

at any given time---

but he saw the look in the handshaked, vaguely

remembering guy’s face,

something of an anti-social behavior,

something in the way of “i don’t really give a

flying f**k,”

and he retracted into a place of insecurity---

the handshaked man doing his best to be polite

remarked,

“hey, how’s it goin’?” &

the skinny red haired john doe said with

embarrassment, “i’m selling appliances---

but that’s not what i’m really doing.  i mean,

i’m working on something---going to school,

gonna work in forestry---yeah, that’s what i

want to do.”

 

so the handshaked man nodded & smiled,

said “sounds good”---

being cut off by the john doe---

“are you gonna be around the store for a bit?”

sick of the whole situation &

not wanting to reminisce about times that

hold absolutely no significance whatsoever anymore,

the handshaked man declined &

as he walked out of the store

he wondered just why someone would flail themselves on

a person from the past,

only to retract in embarrassment,

before even finding out just what it is that

the other party was doing with their own life.