EDWIN JONES

The happiness in the air fills me and carries me along. I’m back in Brooklyn, walking the shadows of where I used to. It’s been just under four years since I loaded my bags into an Uber for JFK, heading home. And I have now come for that long promised visit before the world changed.

A friend said, NYC is where everything and nothing changes. I walked the blocks towards my old place on 4th Place. Remembering a good eats spot and the best Thai restaurant in NYC (not that hard to do). My street appears and I turn down it. The front yards where I remember seeing Halloween displays, and I start to see the distinct grey and red walk up apartment. It looks exactly the same. And the obese old man who I assumed would have died by now, sitting on the front step. I even imagined him specifically when I thought about NYC during the pandemic, was the one that would have definitely not made it. He always left his door open on the first floor, a news broadcast murmuring from his hallways.

I came, to remind myself this chapter happened. The people and the places all moved and turned in reality, not just in the mazes in my head. I am so thankful I get these chapters. I sit here in my favourite local cafe, the smell of huevos rancheros and filtered coffee and say hello to my ghost. Now off to step into another chapter, but the good thing is, you can always turn back a page and smile before the next.