You trip on the curb and scrape your knee on the pavement. You catch yourself with your hands and fall on your shopping. Your baguette is bent in two and specked with asphalt. A cherry tomato rolls toward the road, crying for her crushed love. A beer can springs a tiny leak, hissing and spraying a fine mist. You catch a bit with your tongue.

In between two parked cars, one yellow, one pinkish, you turn yourself over, and sit on the slabs. A cat asks you if you’re fine. “I’m fine.” you say. You are, you think. You dust down the bread and fish out the brie. Not much can go wrong with brie. You layer up and take a bite, and crack open the can. The blood from your knee is saturating your leggings. It’s a wide, shallow wound.

Everything is nice.