Golden Hour in the District of Columbia | Noah Lane Browne
It is late afternoon in late summer, the golden hour as everyone here calls it, as horizontal sunlight turns white marble monuments of war and history into shades of amber, softening Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian lines with warm hues, mellowing the capital’s imperial tone, when because the air is less suffocating at least for now and because you are feeling stronger at least for now, you unwrap your headscarf and pull on your wig, adjusting its fit in the mirror, and we walk to the beer garden and sit at a wooden picnic table under a white umbrella that says Weihenstephaner and I order a pilsner and you order a Coke, no ice, because you don’t understand why Americans are obsessed with ice given that the Coke is always plenty cold already and when I’m halfway through my beer I use the restroom and when I come back you nod towards a young man a few picnic tables over (young man being my words not yours and maybe a bit condescending or something my grandmother would say, what I really mean is just some guy) who had strutted over to you while I was peeing and flirted with you and tried to pick you up (there I go again, strutted being my word not yours and which implies an arrogance or douchiness that may not be fair, what I really mean is that he just walked over to you) and with dark brown eyes wide and playful you whisper He didn’t even notice I am bald! and you are grinning and actually now I am too because your illness has vanished from the world and its strutting young men and everything feels normal again, at least for a golden hour.
About the Author:
Noah Lane Browne writes about family, memory, and survival. His work appears in Unbroken, Disco Kitchen, Chicago Story Press, Voices, and Qu. He lives in Washington DC with his badass wife and intemperate cat.
Accompanying photo by Simon Fitall