By Ihor Pidhainy
As the hour draws to a close what final words do you have for us. Is it quite possible that your language has cut you off from what you want to say. You are indeed choked by the excess that you have ingested, injected, guzzled and inhaled.
Further, you are a two-bit thinker. And I am being generous.
A dirty old man sat in the doorway next to Wanda’s Fixtures. I had a date with Wanda – it was our first and I was a little nervous about the whole situation. The dirty old man sat on a little stool bundled up against the cold that peeked in at times on his congregation.
“Could you spare some change,” he went to ask me or meant to ask me, but I sidestepped the issue and walked in a semi-circle about him. I had seen him for years in this or some similar spot. I was brimming with cash, but that in itself might cover -just- our date.
Wanda was with a customer and I removed myself to the back for a few moments of meditation.
“I’m done,” Wanda spoke, “where are we going?”
“Wherever you’d like,” I answered confidently and with an openness that was required.
“Let’s go to Lee’s Palace.”
We went.
On the way past a hand reached for a hand-out, I would swear, but I erased it from my imagination by facing forward – after all, I don’t have eyes in the back of my head.
Lee’s Palace was disappointing. I am not a dancer. Wanda liked to dance. I lost her to an orangutan who sported a homo sapien outlook and wore an outfit a respectable orangutan would not be caught alive in.
I walked home past Wanda’s fixture. The doorway next beckoned. The dirty old man sat with a stupid grin brought on by a, perhaps, stupid joke.
“Can you spare some change?”
But I did not hear what he said.
Instead, I held the wad tight in my pocket. I walked determined on to my lonely apartment, a lonely lover forgotten by his love.
* * *
Ihor Pidhainy is a teacher and writer. His poetry will be appearing in Litbop, Merion West, Scapegoat Review, Juste Milieu Zine, and Rambler Magazine. His story, “Neixin’s Visit” is being published in Union Spring Literary Review.
What a beautifully melancholic piece! The raw emotion and vivid storytelling really pulled me into the narrator’s world—the nervous excitement, the quiet guilt, and the loneliness that lingers after love slips away. The imagery of the dirty old man and the date at Lee’s Palace felt so real, like moments we’ve all lived in one way or another. The way the protagonist avoids, erases, and ultimately clings to his own solitude is both haunting and deeply relatable. This was a truly immersive read—brilliantly written!