Walking into it

Last nite, I walked with my head down, mind floating and thoughts submerged, with the sureness of a villager who navigates with the memory of his legs and not by the explicit street and store signs, into this sushi restaurant I know. I negotiated with the woman doing the seating, finagled a seat at the bar, and plopped down on the chair, and looked up: there was no sushi chef, and indeed, no sushi. The place had transformed itself from a rarity of a japanese restaurant with a female sushi chef into a korean restaurant. They had left the layout the same and subtly updated the fixtures and colors. The sushi counter was there with a different counter top, and behind it lay emptiness. I stared for a while before walking out and heading home, this time paying attention to store signs, a manhattan lesson for the day.