I’m peeling a clementine when an older man collapses on the bench with difficulty. ”Whoa, these must be the low-riders” he jokes to the woman next to him. He’s wearing light-colored jeans, fashionable black winter shoes and a wallet-chain like they wore in the 90’s. A trim gray goatee rounds out his youthful attempts.
“Yup” he says openly “headed to the doctors’”.
She nods sincerely.
“Y’know, at my age, you gotta go” His shrill voice bounces warmly around the station “It’s not like they give you a warranty or anything.” She is at least ten years older than him and responds in kind.
“Oh, certainly” she says, “I used to have the sharpest eyes of all the girls in my company and now I have to ask which train is arriving” Her voice is like beige tissue paper.
They speak about age and the losses of time.
“Yeah, I lived in the virgin island for 15 years” His tangent begins. “I would dive in the sparkling blue water and see all around me the beautiful coral, in glittering pink, green colors. Neon fish lighting up with the sun hitting them right-on”
Her eyes mist off across the four sets of rails and into the far world of these ancient colors.
“My buddy who lives down there still, I talked to him and he says it’s not like that anymore” His voice trails down toward his chest. “The waters are more cloudy and the coral is bleached black. ‘How does something get bleached and turn black?!’ I asked him”
“It’s a different world”
“But the people still go there and they’re amazed. It’s all new to them” He perks. The train arrives and I sprint to the garbage can to throw away my clementine peels before boarding the train. I enter a crush of people too lazy or ignorant to move to the less crowded part of the train and I make my excuses. I find a seat and at the next stop I hear a familiar voice.
“Here’s a coupla seats. You sit there and I’ll sit here” He carefully finds his seat across from the woman who finds hers. I notice for the first time that he’s wearing glasses, comically round, with thick black frames.
“So I can look at you and you can look at me” he says.
I loved the phrase, her voice was like thin
beige tissue paper. And this story had an end. so you can look at me and I can look at you. Great!
Comment by Gramma — December 31, 2009 @ 7:53 pm |