Table 1

Table 1 is empty, saved for the memories.


Table 1 is an album of ordinary life; the ordinary life between a man and a woman. It is unmarked, the photos never labelled. It is a story lensed by words that forget themselves; a microfilm monologue. Like all photographs, the moments captured become surreal. Each angle is the geometry of laughter and regret, every frame is something that never was.

That’s our album.

See, that’s you, eyes darkened by the dye of intimacy, your face opened like the door to a miracle. And look, that’s me, stupid and unlined, bright with hope, so young it was almost pitiful. I wore my anxiety like a cheap medal. You wore your satisfaction like the tie you never fancied, but was pushed into your hands on Christmas morning. Our smiles were the only thing genuine, so bright they defined the dullness of our obvious pleasure. Our ordinary life.

“I am a very selfish man,” you said, and the photograph captured your fingers caressing the empty space where your wedding ring once was.

“And that makes me a very foolish woman,” I replied; cue shot of my too-rich smile, my face eaten up by shadows.

We never said goodbye. Or maybe that was all we did, all the time: in a bed that wasn’t ours, in a room that wasn’t ours, in a time that wasn’t ours, all that was really said and done was goodbye.

That was our Table 1, with only one place setting, one lone wine glass, and one ending.


Table 1 is an invisible city.

A city with a maze of railway tracks, curving down the spine of an old boulevard, where trains run on memories, and never stop on time. A city costumed by opposites, at once solid and imaginary, a true-false coin-flip conundrum that might fold in on itself, and disappear. Here, the roads are parodies of lives lived and forgotten: one might lead to our house.

When was it built? Over twenty years ago. We were different versions of our selves, and we built the house as we would a chapel. A sacred space, for you and me, so we could walk in here and cease to be.

“You are like the ocean,” you said once to me. “I can only enjoy you, never own you. I’m the shell you toss out, left on the beach.”

“Who betrayed whom? Perhaps it was the shell that left the sea, struggled free of its waves.” Our metaphors: tokens of love, or hints of recreancy?

The rain came in, wet our porch. You feared termites; I laughed at your worry.

“The foundation of our house – it’s not as strong as you think,” you said. “It could be a real danger. Why do you not see it?”

I thought: because being with you was the greatest danger. Love is the greatest danger. What else could we risk? That was how tensed our love was, fragile and tough at once, easily destroyed, but never truly wiped out. I lost you, all the time – stupidly, unwillingly, unconsciously – but then found again. Our love, like our appetite for absinthe; a crushing habit.

Our house was safe, built to last. But we didn’t. We lived together, but we also lived apart. Our selves become tenants in a house, meeting on the staircase or the kitchen, but returning to bed in a divided room. You were in earshot, but you couldn’t hear me. I was close enough to touch, but that two inches of pain drove you back behind your door.

Now our house is in an invisible city; it is an invisible city. That’s our Table 1, set for two, with wine glasses that empty far too quickly, even if you are no longer with me.


Table 1 is a doctor’s room. It has white walls but no soul, medication but no cure.

The doctor isn’t here. Old age has no redress. No one teaches you how to grow old; no one told me my body is to be a rendezvous for my past youth and future death, and my present, lottery to disease and happenstance.
The nurse isn’t here. No one to help these old limps, no one to calm the worn, ill heart. What does it beat for? I feel around my chest and it is languished flesh, pliant to touch. Was I ever young?

There is another patient. She looks familiar, the way strangers do when you’ve lived long enough. “How are you?” Her lips move but no sound comes out. Her eyes speak volumes, a Dorian Grey portrait, hung but unsung.

“You remind me of someone,” I say. My words rasped out of my voice box, an unconversant vibration in the quiet of the room.

“I am your child,” she say. There is a catch in her voice; she does not try to touch me.

I shake my head. “I was never a father.” My life has been a Faustian pact, its magic brief but troubling. It was not a life that fostered love or fatherhood – I would have remembered. I would, wouldn’t I? The past is a ghost, once alive, now a whisper.

“You have forgotten, but I’m your daughter.” She comes nearer, closes her hands around my trembling fingers. “Dad,” she adds for measure.

“Where is the doctor?” I croak. My eyes are dim with tears. I can taste the salt. What do you do, when you’ve forgotten you’ve ever lived?

That’s my Table 1, a table never lain, yet littered with crumbs of food I don’t remember eating.


Time passed, like it always does. Table 1 sits and wait.