Our Path is Paved in Echoes
Page 5
The size of your clothes breaks my heart.
10 Green curry
I wear yellow shirts on Tuesdays because it makes sense. I once read that yellow was the color of the king in Thailand, and everyone who liked the king wore lots of yellow shirts. I used to eat green Thai curry on Tuesdays with you, so I started wearing yellow to celebrate.
I’ve always really liked green Thai curry, at least since that day when we were in Seattle and overlooking the water you said you knew a great Thai place around the corner, we went there and you had the green curry, I got pork fried rice because I was scared of the curry, until you made me try one bite, and then I ordered some for myself, nodding to the waitress a nod that meant my compliments to the chef. After the meal was over I walked up to the door leading into the kitchen and pushed it to just a little bit, then said, My compliments to the chef, a man yelled at me, in Thai I figured, probably saying You’re welcome! Don’t mention it! Do what you love! So since that day I’ve always loved green Thai curry. I wear yellow shirts on Tuesdays just like when you and I would go to lunch and remember Seattle, by the waterfront, it was fun then, quiet. Not so much like now.
I read once that coconut milk makes the world go quiet until you only hear the silence, which means you don’t have to hear the noise anymore. That’s another thing I like about green Thai curry. The silence. At lunch sometimes I could hear the spoons clink against the bowls and the rice stick to the chop sticks and I would say how good it was, you would nod, caught in the silence of the coconut milk, it’s not that you didn’t have anything to say to me, it was just the coconut milk.
Sometimes the spices in green Thai curry can make your eyes water, and despite the quiet calm of the coconut milk I could hear the water from your eyes splash in the bowl, I don’t think you noticed as much as me, you just kept enjoying the meal, the spices really got to you the last time we went for green Thai curry together, it was the quietest coconut milk they had ever used, afterwards, when you had gone out to the car to get your tissues for your eyes, with all the spices, they were really getting to you that day, a Tuesday, with my yellow shirt tucked in to my favorite jeans, the ones you gave me last Christmas, I nodded to the waitress to indicate My compliments to the chef, even though your eyes were watering so much, I knew the coconut milk that day was rare and beautiful, the quietest coconut milk I had ever seen in green Thai curry, it made everything so you couldn’t even hear me when I spoke, you didn’t react at all despite the volume in my voice, the spices were getting to you so much and your eyes would just not stop watering, but the coconut milk, it kept the world quiet.
I knew it was the best green Thai curry we would ever have together.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Michael Bonady is the author of the novel A Butterfly Came to Rest, now available in print and e-book formats.
https://www.amazon.com/A-Butterfly-Came-Rest-ebook/dp/B00BY85ZXO