I want to walk to the grocery store, the one that gives me that big box experience, to pick out lilies, berries, and hot cross buns. April is approaching, and Spring teases me in the Midwest because she is not done dancing the flurries.
I want to walk to the coffee shop to meet my friend, who will tell me that lilies are cheaper in the corner store down the road from my apartment, run by a Mexican family who are trying to make it through the month, who have recently lost at least half their clientele because no one wants to show up to shop for nopales, tortillas, or tamales, only to be stopped for papers. Go there, give them your money, they could use it. She forgets that they are coming for all of us, too. All sorts of us who are foreign and alien and international and just simply not from here. Only a few days ago, one of my classmates went out for coffee in the evening, not even for the fancy kind, just something simple to keep him awake so he could finish his midterm papers. He never returned, his RSVP to the international students association’s Easter brunch invite left on read. I want to recall if he, too, promised flowers. Are there ever too many flowers at any occasion? I want to get flowers. More flowers. Flowers on his behalf, flowers for all of us, flowers just because. Suddenly I yearn to walk. Is that a stage in the process of grieving? I want to grieve the sudden unexplained loss of a classmate, grieve the loss of the joy of going to the Mexican corner store for tamales, now stolen out of fear. Only a few months ago, my stomach recognized that tamales are the Mexican cousins to the zhongzi my parents make, and thus, a cure for homesickness was found. Suddenly I yearn to walk, and when I begin, to just keep walking. It is April, the days will be warmer. Perhaps that way, all that approaches, melts. Flowers. Flowers.
I want to walk into his detention cell. I can feel the cold emanating from the walls, so I will gently take his hands. I know we will walk out, and because it is still April, still Minnesota, snow falls like dust, not sticking, as we head to the corner store. The door will chime as we enter. Aisles of the freshest fruits, air perfumed with pan dulce. He will pick out the brightest stalks of lilies – yellow, orange, pink, so resplendent, resurrected. I will collect conchas in a box, the colors reviving our spirits in celebration. The cashier will smile. The days will be warmer. All that approaches, melts. Flowers. Flowers. Flowers.