PLACE
short fiction for long reflection
(Photo by. Sarandy-Westfallon Unsplash)
It had been a busy day, and getting home was the only thing on Sara’s mind this rainy summer evening. Commuting from the center of the city to the suburbs had become a weary part of her day, as she moved about in a bubble of self-absorption, unaware of life around her.
She could feel the movements and smell the sweat of day laborers mingled with old ladies’ perfume. Horns blared as traffic crept by in the madness of ‘rush hour.’ It should have been called ‘creep hour.’ That would describe not only the movement of cars, taxis, and trucks but also some of the people who moved in and out of her field of vision as she tried to stay focused on her thoughts. “Did I get that last proposal handed in on time? How did my daughter’s exam go? Do I need to pick up cat food? The voices in her head drowned out the cacophony of the city.
Sara’s stomach growled in hungry protest as the aromas of the bakery across the street wended their way through the fog and rain to the awning that sheltered a small crowd waiting for the next bus. Images of fresh bread with imported Edam seeped into a brain already saturated from a day of vending machines and donuts.
Nine hours in the city had left her thirsty and tired, impatient to be home and dreaming of a hot shower followed by a glass of Cabernet. Visions of sausage stuffed zucchini sinking under a layer of melted Swiss danced through her brain like a champagne waltz on Saturday night TV. She couldn’t wait to be home – a place to find
a kind word, a gentle look, a soft touch
and a place to lay her burdens down.
Sara glanced at the harried mother next to her.
Three children struggled for their mother’s attention as she held an infant to an empty breast and wondered to herself if there was peanut butter for the few crackers left in her cupboard. She kissed the top of the baby’s head while massaging her own temples in small mindless circles. With her vision blurred by tears of despair, she strained to contain her hunger–hunger for so much more than food.
She yearned for a place to find
a kind word, a gentle look, a soft touch
and a place to lay her burdens down.
An ache replaced the growling in Sara’s stomach, and her heart hurt at the strain of hunger on the faces of the children. With lowered eyes and a half-smile, she nodded to the quiet child with eyes like two black checkers gazing at the bakery across the street. A gentle look was all she had to offer. No words, let alone kind ones, would leave her pursed lips.
An old man sat to her left, hunched and shivering as he wiped spittle from the corner of his unshaven face with trembling hands. He had the unmistaken stare of a soul long overdue for a visit from his ‘Old Granddad.’ One swallow was all he could envision, all he could hope for, as he tapped his bony fingers restlessly on his knee. He had long ago given up trying to focus his bleary eyes in search of what he really thirsted for
a kind word, a gentle look, a soft touch
and a place to lay his burdens down.
And so the old man waited, fingers drumming, eyes unfocused and unaware of the people around him. Waited for a ride to go somewhere.
Sara wondered if there was a somewhere for this man to go. As the waves of his loneliness reached the shores of her heart, she winced. The Cabernet would stay on the rack for another time.
A young couple stood to the side with fingers locked and eyes only for each other. They listened in silence to the beat of their inner music, as their bodies spoke in sign language. It was not difficult to translate their desires. Desires which, unbeknownst to them, would lead in less than a year to a child they would not be able to care for. For now, they waited like everyone else for the bus to take them on the next leg of their journey. A journey that included
a kind word, a gentle look, a soft touch,
and a place to lay their burdens down.
Sara stepped aside for a mini-skirted woman poured into tights and a tight sweater. She turned to avoid staring, not wanting to think about the woman’s story, nor wanting to see the pain etched behind that stiff smile. Sara remembered too clearly her own younger years and the choices she had made, feeling unwanted, rejected, and alone.
By now, her foot had stopped its irritated tapping for a bus that seemed like it would never come. She stopped feeling the rain that was soaking everyone to the skin. No longer encased in a bubble of separation,
she knew she was each person
waiting for the same bus
to go to the same place
where she knew most
would not arrive,
not tonight,
anyway.
A place
to find
a gentle look, a soft touch, a kind word
and a place to lay their burdens down.
