Barbecue and Communal Meals

You're standing at the edge of the terrace with a beer in your hand. Somewhere charcoal is burning. Someone laughs too loudly. On the table: salad bowls, paper plates, a bottle of ketchup nobody needs anymore. You smile. You nod. You listen. And inside — very quietly, almost inaudibly — something contracts.

Maybe it's a pressure in the stomach. Maybe a lump in the throat. Maybe just this strange feeling of being too much and at the same time too little. You don't know why you're getting tired even though you haven't done anything. You don't know why you suddenly have a headache. You only know: you want to go home. But you can't — not this early, not without an explanation, not without it being noticed.