please say it back

Three scenes in public.

Dear sweet friend,

1. The sliding bathroom door on the train jiggled open an inch, then quickly shut. Jiggled open, then shut, on and on for a minute or so. The lock was jammed, and someone was in there. I looked up from my phone as a teen tried to pry the door open from the outside. It didn't work. Eventually a bulky woman busted out, catching her balance. She turned to huff aggressively at the door that had almost trapped her. Before I could take in her face, she firmly pulled a Santa hat well below her forehead and ears and took off into the next train car.

2. A thickly bearded bear at the bar rambled about how a mouse in his kitchen had left him sobbing on the cold tile. I was fragile from too many energy drinks, he said. He asked if he could take a quick bump, ducking below the table and popping back up to tell us how he trapped the mouse in a jar, then added a piece of moss to make it a little home. He bounced to another unrelated woe. And then another. I couldn’t keep up. My contacts were drying out.

3. At the airport gate, a guy with curly hair and a sandy-colored goatee was talking to his girlfriend on his phone and kept saying, I don't hear you say you miss me. She wasn’t saying it back. He was repeating it over and over, each time more desperate. I ate a protein bar and took sips from an Evian, wondering when she will tell him.

For you: a fragrance from Czech perfumer Kintsugi, inspired by forest bathing. Hanzo crashes in with fruity freshness, settles into velvety apricot and soil like a fairy beneath the forest floor, then drifts into deep, dreamy woods by morning.

Love!

—scotty

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