The man I always nod to is missing.

We are walkers, he and I, creatures of habit. His is a clockwise direction, I prefer to walk counter. Each day, somewhere around midday, we converge, nod, then continue on our way. There is never a hello or goodbye. Ours is a wordless friendship, but his absence does not go unnoticed.

His disappearance has left me out of kilter, and unbalanced. Facing east, I stop in my tracks, as if waiting for the signal to continue, waiting for the nod. But the man I always nod to is not there, and I have taken to wondering if perhaps he has grown tired of all this nodding. Decided that even this small, silent, intimacy is too much.

I try not to dwell on other possibilities – he is old, the man I always nod to – and instead, decide on a change of direction. I walk his route and arrive at the mid-point with the sun high above me, and an unexpected pulse of expectation thrumming in my chest, a steady beat which sounds like ‘hello’.

And just what is it I am expecting? To see myself walking towards me? But here I am, alone under the midday sun, with not even my shadow for company. Filling the empty space with a nod. Breathing out that steady thrum until it forms a word.

‘Hello,’ I say to my missing friend.

But the air is still. No reply. No hello. No goodbye. Though I wait for it, but only for a moment. Then turn and head back the way I came. Bisected, asymmetric, and resigned now to semi-circles.