III. Urn

“You can actually sit here,” is what I thought the waiter said.

We walk in.

He moved over the tray of pastries and slid out the wooden bar chair. Looking down, I saw the footrests were gone. The table faced the entrance, allowing me to peer out the wide opening. There was no glass to look through. The sound of cars, conversations, and dogs poured in.

“Por favor, el americano,” I said, pointing at the menu.

The waiter nodded, scribbling in his notepad.

Off he went.

Trees and shrubs everywhere, with the trees meeting the roofs of flat-top buildings, narrow lanes for cars, divided with a concrete walkway.

Light struggles to break through the trees, but with hope, manages to do so.

Did the trees come first and the buildings built around them?

Or was it the other way around?

III. Urn plays on the stereo above.

How is it that every woman that walks by is so beautifully dressed?

The waiter’s back.

“Gracias,” I said.

It’s my first day in Mexico City.

It all feels weird.

Weird only means new.

And I’m, s l o w l y, beginning to like new.

This is what AI can’t replace, my first experience out the country.

It can create.

But it can’t observe, soak in, and do your living.

– George