Deli

Sandwich choices astound. Ingredients cause me to pause. Help. A voice hears me before I say anything out loud (I think). Can I help you, it says. Yes, what's speck, I nearly reply when my eyes stumble across the scarf around the voice's neck. I know that pattern, that wool. Those pink flowers on black. The matted fringe from machine washing. That scarf purchased while I lived overseas in a nation where women have long stayed warm with woven flora wrapped around their heads. The scarf came home with me. Became a sometime decorative object. An affectation for Halloween. Then a move and a purge. This piece was not selected for keeping. I want to tell the voice this story. That I know the cloth. Where did you get that scarf, I ask. A nearby second-hand store. It's pretty, I say. Yeah, I like it, says the voice, it's old-fashioned. The voices comes from a body around 20 years old. Probably the body attends classes at the college across the street. I stop myself from sharing stories about the scarf, its journey from there to here. In another land, I want to say, you would wear that scarf while bringing fresh strawberries from your farm to market. It would be tradition and function. You would look like many others. Here, you are an original making expensive food for few. It works. The voice wears it well. Less said I decide is, as usual, best.