Time Warp

I escaped from New York two weeks ago to the quiet of Virginia and slipped back into a world and pattern not so different from the one I left a decade ago. The trees still stood in their places, a little thicker and taller. I'd forgotten some of the road names, but never the routes. Right at Shore Drive still led to the ocean, 7-11 still trusted its patrons enough to leave the Slurpee machine unattended, its swirls of sugary ice so perfectly watery I drank two in a single week. You could wave three times in a parking lot to strangers who held doors, nodded in the heat, or smiled. It was like stepping foot on a set that hadn't cleared once the heavy velvet curtain dropped its weight. My lines came back slowly, the role revised with the alacrity of a method actor who smells smoke for the first time in months, in pangs, with pressure and lightness all the same.