After the middle-aged woman hands me
my three food items, she asks if I want anything else.

Being in one of those moods, I answer,
“Yes! Can you tell me the meaning of life?”

Stone-faced, she responds, “Excuse me…
would you please repeat that? I don’t think
I heard you correctly.”

Feeling like I was now face-to-face
with Mrs. Hermanson, my second-grade teacher
who made me afraid to go to school, I reply,
“That will be it. Thank you.
And have a good rest of your day.”

 

Jeffrey Zable is a teacher, conga drummer/percussionist who plays for dance classes and rumbas around the San Francisco Bay Area, and a writer of poetry, flash-fiction, and non-fiction. He’s published five chapbooks and his writing has appeared in hundreds of literary magazines and anthologies, more recently in Rundelania and Misfit among others.