Sonic Boom

The first time I saw her was also my last time. It was at a vinyl store, the Sonic Boom, in downtown Toronto by Chinatown. She looked at me, I looked away, she was still looking, and that’s about it. 

When I entered the store I knew what I was looking for. I came all the way from North York for a white square with a match stick at the centre. When I left the store I had lost something, something I never knew I had before. 

I arrived at the store, the weather was brisk cold and the warm decoration on the showcase was inviting. When I arrived I saw people, people who shared the same interests as me. It was as if we were in a communion and the church was the Sonic Boom and we were walking around exhibits of our idols, our gods, arranged in alphabetical order. 

For me, as with most things, the idols were in the basement of the store. I walked past the punk section, walked past the Rock, and the hard rock and in the little small corner of the store, where the light was dim and everything was dark, I found my section: Heavy Metal. It was written with the chalkduster font. 

I found it! Rammestein’s new album! There it was with the match perfectly resting at the centre of the white void. I dusted it off, but there was no dust, it was clean. That was when I saw her. 

She was with her friends. I looked at her, she looked at me, we held the look for an awfully long time in the universe of strangers looking at each other. There was no smile, no node, no social cue or anything, just a look, like a heavy damp blanket on a hot summer day kind of look. 

There was a weight to it, the look, in a good way. Like I see you, I know you exist at this moment of time, the moment we share, and I want to bask in the loneliness of that fact.

I wish my tongue had protrusions and grooves like vinyl. I also wish I had the guts to ask for her number. I want my tongue to be coarse so I can give my cat licks. I am sure he would be appreciative and it would in turn satisfy me. It would also satisfy me if I had someone to worry about, someone who would also want to have tongues with protrusions and grooves. Just like vinyl. 

•••

When I proposed to her at the Sonic Boom store, she jumped up, her brownish red hair swayed and dropped on her shoulders. It was two years since we met at the vinyl store that cold night in January. 

Two years and we had shared a lot, even the occasional déjà vus; she got hers and then I got mine right after. We shared similar fears, like the dread of one day losing our parents, or death. I knew I loved her when I started to worry about her parents too, and her death. 

I was also worried if her déjà vus were pleasant or made her anxious like they made me anxious. The exact moment I fell in for her was when she said she wanted to have a different tongue. 

- What do you mean? I said. 

- A differently shaped tongue, like one with—

—Grooves and protrusions. We said it together, only that mine was a question and hers a statement. 

We took our first born child to the Sonic Boom as an indulgence in our vanity. I had never noticed that she had red freckles on her nose; small little beautiful red dots like the illuminated points on plane tree branches in fall. They are cute, but not as cute as our son’s dimples when he laughs, smiles and looks at his Mama’s face. I can’t believe our bodies are now connected in something we share so deeply, something we both want to protect. That awful cozy feeling of responsibility that oozes into our pores. 

•••

I looked around to find her. She had left the friend group to browse vinyls near my aisle. She looked up, eye-to-eye, smiled. A current went through from my head to my groin. I wondered if there was something on my face, like a piece of food or snot. I found a mirror, it all looked fine, I was just getting older. I took my records and walked to the cash register. Should I ask her for her number? Would it look odd? I could smell shea butter and honey from the scented candles nearby. What if she is just crazy?

She also walked to the cash register with her friends. I could sense the weight of her look on my back. 

•••

We are old. I am older than her, but she feels it more in her bones; I can almost feel her pain. She still sleeps with her socks on. I am terrified. I can’t lose her. I think I am that fox in the Little Prince, running around on the green grass and white flowers, the air waving with warmth and the meadows reflecting the light like gold pebbles. And I wait for her. And I wait with the morning mist blanketing the air with its heaviness. That awful coziness. Wait for her, but she never returns. 

I am afraid of her death. I am afraid like the death of our son some part of me would die with her too. Of how I no longer wish to have tongues with grooves, but wish to have no tongues at all, so I could not taste any food. That flappy oversized red meat, reflecting the light like a cherry chapstick, filling my mouth like an outsider, like an alien. My tongue always reminded me of the pain of my son’s lost shadow. I wanted to pull it, yank it, cut it out of my mouth. 

I feel guilty that my shadow is still here, with me, anywhere I go, following me, clinging on me with its paws, licking my face with its big cat tongue, bringing me down. 

We go back to the place that was once the Sonic Boom on our wedding anniversary. The store was demolished years ago, in its place there is a Vietnamese restaurant. She doesn’t remember, she doesn’t seem to remember anything. I remember. 

We come here often. She orders the same Special House Pho with no meat and no noodles. I watch her as she slurps the soup and nearly spills it all over herself. I take a napkin and gently dry around her mouth. We always choose the seats by the window so she could look at people walking outside. She likes to sing What a Wonderful World. The doctor said to sing along with her to keep her sharp. It’s not easy to take care of her. 

•••

I looked back, there she was with her friends, she looked at me and then grabbed her phone to take a photo of herself or maybe of me, who knows. Part of me thought I should approach her, part of me thought it was better to stay single the rest of my life. I didn’t want to follow the same route everyone chose. But, I never felt that kind of love before. 

I told myself as soon as I paid and left the store, I should run after and ask her out. At the cash register, my card declined. 

—Would you like to try a different card maybe?

—What does it say on the machine?

—Says insufficient funds. 

I grabbed another card, tapped it, and it declined too. She and her friends were already at the door. I used my visa card this time. It worked. The door opened and a group of teenagers walked in. 

I walked out. It was dark, like when I went in, but darker now, like an open mouth. She was not there, vanished, gone.