Proximity

By Frankie Sturm

“What are you doing?” I asked.

She adjusted herself on the couch and smiled. “Thinking of the immortality of crabs.”

It wasn’t a helpful answer. I knew less than I did before. In fact, the scope of my confusion had only expanded.

“Why in the world are you talking about crabs?”

She’d traversed a continent. Proximity was supposed to facilitate communication. No more dropped calls, no slipshod connections.

Wrong. Static was never the problem. Answers beget questions. Not to mention the questions themselves.

“In my country that’s how we say we are doing nothing.”

She doesn’t know I’m allergic to shellfish.