“Get all you need at Lincoln Mall!”

The highway billboards used to say.

Closed stores, dry fountain, cobweb pall.

Bright lights and Christmas trees and all

The toys my eyes, still young, surveyed—

All I could need at Lincoln Mall.

No sign back then of fatal lull.

“Whole town is here!” And yet, one day,

Closed stores, dry fountain, cobweb pall.

Beside my mom I’d clutch my doll,

Throw coin in water, “wish I may

Get all I see at Lincoln Mall.”

I sat on Santa’s lap, so tall,

But elves and train weren’t there to stay.

Closed stores, brown trees and cobweb pall.

A door unchained so that I may

Come back to where thrown pennies lay,

Seek what I miss at Lincoln Mall.

Dead stores, dry fountain—that is all.

The sugar bowl never moved. I remember that. It sticks in my mind. We were outside at that restaurant everyone else calls Tony’s but you called The Bistro. The university campus was green and active before us. Your hair moved in the light breeze. It was a Tuesday; you used to say Tuesday is the most boring of the seven brothers. You always said stuff like that.

I had coffee. I like Tony’s coffee because he makes it with those beans he buys directly from Honduras, the ones that benefit the families there and are roasted lightly with chicory. The sugar was for my coffee. You had honey for your chamomile. Tony serves his honey in a glass jar with a proper honey dipper. The honey jar moved. It smashed to pieces. But the sugar bowl never moved.

The news lady said the shooting started at 11:36am and ended at 11:51am. Thirteen dead, nine of them students. You we’re not a student, so I guess you’re one of four. One moment you were there, examining your newly done manicure against the white tablecloth. Then you were gone. I pulled you to the ground after the second shot. I peeked over the table toward the masked man as he walked. People were running, shoving Tony’s tables and chairs out of the way as they fled like hunted things, which I guess they were.

The police were there quickly. And an ambulance. They took you away. I sat back in my chair as they asked me questions. When I saw the sugar bowl I was confused. Nothing in the world was the same. How could it seem so... unaffected.

So I pushed it off the table.