Small Chinese grocery store with a name nobody can pronounce. Got hot dogs and old hope.  Albert squeezing mustard on his dog when Chinaman owner guy asks Albert if he want hope  with his meat. 

No thanks, says Albert. 

No hope? 

Albert shakes his head. Expired, he says. 

Bus honks. On the street. Honk slips through store door to announce bus an important part of city  life. Makes sense. Without transport people trapped in their apartment without the key to  success. 

Believe in god? asks Chinaman. 

Saw shadow once, says Albert. Got mayo? 

Woman comes in. Albert doesn’t know her name. Never will. She lives over by the liquor  warehouse they say and was dragged by a shark when her foot got tangled in a net off the coast  of Mexico. 

Want a bite? asks Albert. Not best selling pickup line. Not even free one scribbled on a ketchup  napkin. But. It all Albert can muster on the quick. 

Woman looks at Albert for a moment like he one broken butterfly, then: alright. 

Outside. Sidewalk. Bench bolted there. Usually junkies sit and count track marks, but by the  shadow grace of god, free from flesh. Albert and woman sit.

On the street in the flow of the singular moment they sit and let the universal energy of the  universal day cleanse them with a provisional universal awareness of how the day is charmed  when you live on unexpired hope, when you believe in the unanimous goodness of all things and  actions and human beings benevolent or bitter until death take you, or until cynical Mr. Ed who  runs the barber shop next door steps out to say he wishes Albert well to get in her pants. 

Crude. Downright. Albert a nice guy. From far away. Born to a well-to-do family. Later  disowned. Sent him packing on roof of a train when Albert said money ought not to be  worshiped. 

Woman takes a bite of hot dog. Pronounces it favorable. Has texture, she says. Recalls wild pigs  in an enchanted forest snuffing for truffles before being hauled off in ropes to the cannery. 

You’re a saint, says Albert. Beach? 

By that he mean vacant lot next to nearby church where construction companies dump leftover  sand. Neighborhood sits imprisoned in middle of a city. City trapped in middle of a country.  Country in much distrust stagnation disrepair. Even if you found a highway to the ocean, all  there tarred with mansions and helicopter pads. 

No saint, says the woman. But I like books. 

While they talk, someone without a face, removed during the last bombing, sits at a window.  Above the street. Looks through curtain at the bench. No Face might be woman. Might be man.  Nobody wants to choose and get it wrong. 

No Face was an artist. Before the war. Sketched all dead presidents in red pencil. He or she trusts  no one to comb what’s left of her his hair. Perceptive. He or she sees bench is sprouting  romance. 

Yes. How romance starts. First a bite, some dribbled mustard, maybe a Coke. Soon the log  smolders. Cave warms. But before journey goes from store to mayo to expired hope, necessary to  have car with distracted driver. Text message or important meme. Down street car leaps to  sidewalk. Smashes lamppost. Woman turns her head quick. Albert sees back of her neck.

On the same street, as the back of her neck arches gracefully from sculpted shoulders and flows  into the eyesight of Albert during distraction, it becomes clear in the collective energy of the  common day that her neck carries a lush forest of long black hair that gives the woman the  appearance of a gracious enchanter who has been placed upon the earth to render speechless all  lovers of beauty. 

No time. Wreckage calls. Leap up. Run to smashing. Mr. Ed the barber comes out again with  scissors in hand. Good he not psycho. 

Car belongs to kid. Kid spent time in kid jail. Tried to rob an old lady purse. From impact Purse  Kid has forehead stuck in steering wheel. Pops it free. Not much blood. He kid cries for his  phone whacked dead. 

You okay? asks Albert. 

Purse Kid looks at his fingers. Answer: Yes. 

But no. A kidsize coverup. Worried funeral for his phone cost more than he make selling sniff  glue to suicidal adolescents. Kid look like he want to run hands over exploded carburetor or pet  street dogs with knives. Whatever. Served his purpose. Two budding lovers off their asses.  Albert and woman say goodbye. Walk to the beach. 

They sit on cinder blocks with feet in construction sand. Speak of fallen city. World. So many  disputes. Love sprawls bruised broken amid massacres. They wonder. Can love flourish?  Flowers crushed. They ask. What might be different if they met another time? Before woman  married a macho cruel man. After Albert forgave his family. 

Old Hotel Street. They enter a sweet shadow room. Woman says she got no undergarment  between her legs. Nothing to stop them making a baby if shadow god wills it. Albert touches.  Woman touches. World turns to silver. Then gold. 

As it turns out shadow god is too busy with earthquakes to change the course of expired hope  which is after all a case for pity rather than admiration buried as it is under discarded calendar  pages.

Still. Albert and woman love. Ever long. Hold themselves close. Dangle cigarettes over bed  edge. Blow smoke rings. Clasp hands. Eat hot dogs. Drink tea. Compare interpretations of  Dostoevsky. How Peter disappeared, his soul salvaged or damned. 

Three months they love. Each day a heartbeat. Then. Then. Hurricane. Time stretches thin to a  soap bubble, breaks to wanton cruel lie. Mrs. Woman rekindles her marriage, goes home. Albert  dissolves to whiskey sorrow. Well shit damn. Expired hope tried to warn. Tried to kick  sentimental expectations to curb. Nobody dances on cloudbanks. Row your own boat. 

And Albert recovers in time in time don’t we all we must to save our sanity. He flows out of  distress and over far oceans far countries to catch stray dogs by the neck and give them home  care vaccinations and blankets and collars. He breaks himself into smaller and smaller pieces.  Each piece melts into a puddle of the past. Soon Albert is seven decades worth of memory in an  institution made of steel doors and nursepaint looking back at how life drifts from one island to  the next on a grand sea of years, and how nothing is truly governed by expired hope, only by  retrograde reality and the love of ordinary days littered with blossoms of simple joy.