Light in your eyes

On Christmas day, he sat in New York with a bowl of $4.45 fried dumplings, a nickel and dime for change, and a book he had received seven days earlier whose title he couldn't pronounce. There was no snow outside, but the day was cold enough for it, and what he thought of in the afternoon were the words to a naive melody about someone who wanted to be home. Home for him, however, was very far away, both in distance and in time. And though the dumplings were good and the book was really a letter, the certitude still lay in the absence of what he was thinking of. Later, when the possibilities began winking again and he realized that he had more cash than he had thought, the evening only made him more aware that none of the faces in the window was the one with a view.