I am in Wawa, swaying with the slightest, most pleasant amount of whiskey. My stomach is rumbling and aching in hunger. Over the speakers, seemingly playing in some past realm, is a lulling piano melody that I recognize, though cannot quite place, from somewhere in childhood. My fingers sting in the way cold extremities do when faced with sudden warmth. There are three pretty girls to my right, and one in rectangular glasses and a striated black white skirt paces anxiously, her heels clicking matronly on the floor. If I tilt my head ever so gently to the left, I can be overwhelmed by the sweet smell of another pretty girl, her perfume hanging onto the fibers of my clothes like smoke. There is a lively, consuming warmth beginning to emanate from my gut, trickling outwards in four torrents and drooping my body like a flower exposed to too much sun.
I walk away from the girls and the piano and the warmth. I open the door, bracing in anticipation of the cold. I turn the corner, and the wind hits me with enough force that I want to fall backwards and let it roll over me like a tide.