“I wandered into a corner restaurant in Hell’s Kitchen on Sunday.”

soup starts

Dear diary:

On a Sunday night during a two-week trip to this city, I wandered into a corner restaurant in Hell’s Kitchen.

Everything on the menu looked delicious. As I was trying to decide which soup to have, a bowl was delivered to a man who was sitting alone next to me.

“What soup is that?” I said after he got his first taste.

I immediately regretted asking. This was New York, so my chatter felt out of place. Don’t bother me, I thought.

The man turned to me.

“It’s a green onion,” he said. “That’s delicious. I’d appreciate it if you could sit here again. The couple who left earlier, that guy’s voice was so annoying!”

— Megan Moore

In praise of Whitman

Dear diary:

It was 96 degrees and merry-go-round music was playing as I approached the scholars hosting the annual Walt Whitman celebration in Brooklyn Bridge Park.

I asked if there was space for another reader and was told to speak to a woman in blue. She was the literature professor and had the final say.

When I spoke to the woman in blue clothes, she informed me that participants needed to register online.

I told the truth because I wanted to read it.

“I’m no big deal,” I said. “Your audience will like me.”

She handed me the microphone with a worried look on her face. And with the Brooklyn Bridge in the background, I borrowed a book from a woman who was standing there and let out a savage scream at the audience.

Sometimes I am filled with anger, fearing that I have poured out love that will not be returned to the person I love.
But now I believe that there is no such thing as unrequited love. You will definitely get paid in some way.
(I loved someone passionately, but that love was not returned.
Still, I wrote these songs out of it. )

As I bowed and turned to leave, people cheered. When I got off the stage, I knew for the first time what it felt like to be forgiven.

— Danny Klecko

look up

Dear diary:

A group of people stood on a corner in the Flatiron District, all looking up at an old, tall building.

I asked a young woman in the crowd what everyone was looking at.

I don’t know! she said.

I asked the same question to a middle-aged man standing nearby.

I don’t know, he said.

They both looked up.

— Felice Orr

cracker

Dear diary:

Both of my parents were New Yorkers, but I grew up in a small town outside of Cleveland, where my parents moved in 1969.

After graduating from college and spending a year wandering around North America with two friends, I ended up spending the scorching summer of 1988 with my grandmother in a tenement house in the Parkchester section of the Bronx.

I loved how the different groups of residents were a little more involved in each other’s lives each day. Two of my favorite residents were my grandmother’s sister who lived nine floors above her. Regardless of when they met, they seemed to have had a few cocktails.

One Saturday morning, I picked up the phone and heard one of the sisters formally introduce herself and ask if I wanted to help her with a little favor.

I knocked on their door, it opened, and the sisters appeared side by side. One quickly turned and went to the freezer. She opened it, pulled out a small package wrapped in foil, and turned to me.

She said her parakeet Cracker died a few weeks ago. Is it okay to bury my beloved bird outside the building?

I went down with my special cargo, walked out the door and came back. I heard my sisters calling from above, leading me a little to the left, a little closer to a large tree, before finally coming to a stop.

I dug a small hole and placed the cracker in it. I believed a few more dry sherrys would be pulled up that day.

— Kevin Clegg

40 wink

Dear diary:

A few years ago, I was in my third year of obstetrics residency at a major hospital in New York City.

After a particularly rough week, I was finally able to calm down and sleep in the call room on the first floor of the hospital. Within minutes, the buzzer rang and I was called to perform the C-section on the top floor.

Blurry-eyed, I stumbled into the elevator and pressed the button. Halfway through, the elevator shuddered to a halt, and it became pitch black.

I called the ward nurse using the elevator phone.

I said, “I’m stuck in the elevator and I need you to grab one of the other residents to perform a C-section.” “Also, please contact maintenance, but tell them there is no need to rush.”

I hung up the phone, curled up in the corner of the elevator, and quickly fell asleep.

The next thing I knew, the door opened and the mechanic got into the car.

I blinked.

“So fast?” I said.

He gave me a confused look.

“You’ve been locked up here for two hours, young lady,” he said.

— Emily Herzog

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Illustration by Agnes Lee