Signs and symbols

James came up from Baltimore last night, here for the weekend to celebrate Chinese New Year with his family (he is Chinese/Ecuadorian). This morning, James and Kiera and I went to brunch together. We had no reservation, and the three of us were seated at a table for six, with three others.

Each one of the three corresponded to one of us - there was a tall, long-faced young man like me; a small, quirky girl like Kiera; and a round-faced friend visiting (it turned out) from Maryland, like James (though this friend was a girl).

After we had ordered our breakfasts, the waitress announced to us that each party had ordered the same three dishes; we further discovered that the twinned meals corresponded to the paired doppelgangers, so that I and the man, Kiera and the girl, and James and the friend were matching. James and the friend, moreover, had both selected the same ingredients for the self-designed omelette; the long-faced young man and I had both specified “over-medium” for our eggs. The meals were identical. Though we three had ordered first, they three were brought their food before we were, and, being exactly the same three dishes, this seemed unfair. They politely waited to begin until we were served.

Our talk combined and separated organically, as an overheard detail or a space for a joke would open into table-wide conversation, and then, subconsciously, sort back out again. They shared a story about a burst pipe in their bathroom; we talked about the zodiac, the jewish calendar, and lunar cycles; we all said how we knew each other, and it turned out that Kiera works in the same office as the long-faced young man’s former roommate. The small and quirky girl was a descendant of Aaron Burr, and went by her middle name. Over the course of the breakfast, I grew very fond of them. At the end of breakfast, we all shook hands and smiled goodbye, breaking gently the quiet braids of connection that we had woven.

I imagine seeing them again: there would be the lag of memory, the flare of recognition, an enthusiastic greeting mitigated by the awkwardness of unfamiliarity. We were closer at breakfast this morning than we could possibly be the next time. We had then the special gravity of coincidence on our side: potent, but too delicate to survive.