How old are you? how young am I?

At first it sounded like a beat.
Not loud. Not fast.

I realized I was hungry. Not suddenly, more like I had been for a while and only just noticed. I found myself staring into the rings of a slice of petrified wood. Dark caramel, pale beige, thin white lines repeating, widening, thinning as they moved outward. Each band a measure. Years laid down in time, adding, never returning.

Water had been there once.
Then less of it.
Then almost none.

I had good years with water too. And some very dark rings. The dark ones hold the longest.

Water. Wood. Stone.
A seed. A sprout. A tree.
A life.
A long time after.

It took six men and a ladder to hang the New Year’s lights. Tomorrow they would take them down. Temporary work, steady effort. People passed beneath it like it had always been there.

A couple passed, him bearded, tattooed; she mostly breasts, an average face. Earlier they had staged uncomfortable, sexy photos in good light, phones held high, bodies angled just so. They checked the screen between poses, adjusted, tried again. Proof that the vacation counted, that it would be remembered later.

Others found solace in thong bikinis, if that was still the name for them, sharp tan lines cutting across their lower back. I waited. Waiting sharpened the hunger. I wondered if the darkness would thin enough this year to let some light through.

Just off the main road was a quiet taco stand, tucked along a bumpy side street pocked with potholes, faded murals peeling in the sun, high stone walls holding the heat. An older woman worked the grill, her face transforming when she smiled, the wrinkles deepening into something generous. I stared at the menu, confused, pretended to understand, and pointed at the thing that looked most like something I recognized. She spoke. I nodded.She left to gather ingredients. I waited again.

When she returned, she set the grill on the narrow sidewalk and began. Onion. Cilantro. Meat. Chop. Chop. Chop. Steam lifted into the dry heat. A tortilla, marked by human hands, warmed. The pieces gathered. Folded. Handed over.

It was finally the new year, and with it another ring. Another trip around the sun. Would there be water this time, or would it leave a dry band in the time capsule—something beautiful to look at, but hard to have lived through. I struggled to stay present when even what I was seeing a few dozen yards away had already slipped into the past.

The taco tasted so good it was as if the woman’s smile had been part of the recipe.
It held me there.