novel author

I.
Sometimes I think of him as me, the me I would have been had I been as smart as I desired, had I possessed the eloquence that escapes me, were my memory not deficient, had I succumbed to a desire to live in solitude, roam inner worlds. I tried to say hello at the supermarket (I had latkes, blueberries and applesauce in a basket, he had chicken and cheese and milk in a carriage). I wanted to tell him I am here, hello, but he ran me down with a casual excuse me.

I didn't register. I'm not the him he might have been. I am buying food for a family dinner. He is writing novels while in a space he does not dwell.

II.
Sometimes my archivizing bends the world. It is possible the author was composing a vignette. He told me once that he pieced together a novel while at Safeway. But maybe he was hungry to eat his chicken, and maybe he isn't fodder for metaphor, and maybe my life expands too much when it includes him as a character, to be surprised without reciprocity.