Regardless of the thousands of breadcrumbs we have crumbled in the wake of our ever-present, ever-tracking digital world individuals are still blank canvases. If you have exercised any modicum of privacy in your public life it is still remarkably easy — last stop, this town — to start over.

…that isn’t necessarily the point. We take the words of others for granted. Yes, over time we expand our understanding and solidify the histories we’ve learned. Largely, however, we accept what each other say as truth.

She was a florist — mostly arrangements, not so much reselling. She freelanced, odd jobs here and there. Most of the flowers came from local markets. I first saw her picking flowers from the bodega on Spring Street — or was it Prince? They were a brilliant yellow. I was wearing headphones (as always) and Neil Young’s “Heart of Gold” was playing — cheeky I know, but it’s true. Songs are rarely random anyway — large bundles of songs curated to appear at seemingly opportune times, eventually. I remember it was pissing down rain, windy. New York pulling out of winter, pushing into spring. I didn’t talk to her that day, just watched.

We ended the relationship in the same shop, arguing as we moved through the aisles; throwing words at each other as we tossed avocados and tomatoes into a hand basket. It felt like a cliché, a heated public discussion that only seem to happen in films. She left, I finished and paid at the checkout. The cashier, slow and apathetic.

Not a word of this is true.
The imaginative amongst us construct fascinating, intricate stories. How often do the mundane details of a day resemble fiction?