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My Keys
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 email Michael Z.
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The last place I remember my keys were locking up my house in the morning on my way to work. For some reason, I drove to work that morning. I think Annda the Panda was supposed to come over to help me transform my room into a “dojo.” I think I parked the car by the station so that we wouldn’t have to walk home late at night.
I never park the car by the station in the morning for any other reason. I prefer to walk. Gets the metabolism. Gets the heart pumping. Gets the day started.
There was alternate side of the street parking that day, and it took me longer than I thought to find a spot. It was on the corner, five blocks down, and two avenues over from Ditmars Blvd., the last, or the first, depending on your direction, stop on my beloved N train.
Knowing me I would have done one of two things. I would have thrown the keys on the passenger seat, or tucked them away in my back pocket.
And yet, at the end of the day, my keys were neither in my back pocket, nor on the passenger seat.
They’re not particularly distinctive keys. There are three of them. There’s a Lego Obi-Wan Kenobi key chain. Not old, Alec Guiness Obi-wan. It’s new, Ewan McGregor Obi-Wan.
If I were digging into my pockets looking for my keys I’d feel Obi-Wan’s cloth coat. I could always tell they were there when I felt that little Lego produced cloth.
And now those keys are gone.
Now Obi-Wan’s gone.
And I’m keyless.
I’m Obi-Wan-less.
All that’s left is to think about the times we shared together. Obi-Wan guarded the keys to my old office. Sometimes I’d be the first one in the door in the morning.
I said “sometimes,” not “usually.”
It’s only been a couple of months since the end of that job, but already it seems like a dream to me. Did I really show up there every day?
Were the people I worked with real?
Where are they now? Are they still answering phones, like I remember them? Are they still sending messengers around Manhattan, like I remember them?
Am I still pretending to pay attention when they talked?
Obi-Wan tossed off that office key. He replaced it with a key to my grandparent’s house out in Riverhead. The house I spent my summers at growing up.
I had been wanting a key to that house for years now. Finally, my sister etched me a copy. But only weeks later, before was even used to owning it, it was gone.
And all I can do is try to remember when was the last time I saw them?
Was it as I tossed them onto the passenger seat?
Was it as I stuck them in my back pocket?
But if they were on the passenger seat, Annda the Panda would have sat on them when she got into my car.
But if they were in my back pocket, when would they have fallen out?
Where are they now? What could they do without me? I wished I didn’t have to answer those questions. I just wish I knew what I did with them. |
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