She sits. A small, round woman slushed and fatigued after a
long day's work. She shifts uncomfortably, perhaps under my unblinking stare. I
turn away. In today's moderm world, there is no time for strangers such as us
to make aquaintance. From the corner of my eye I survey her, from her
straggled, silver hair down to her all-purpose moccasins. Wrapped in an anorak
against the bitter cold, she checks her watch. She glances sharply toward me
through deep-set, wrinkled eyes. They have seen far more than I, in my tender
youth, could know.
Who is this woman? With eyes like smoking coal against the sickly paleness of
her skin. Perhaps she is the grandmother long ago forgotten, warm and caring -
wishing to be reunited with the grandchild she once lost. Perhaps she is the
mother of the man I'll one day marry - wary and judgemental as I steal away her
only son. Perhaps she lives alone, an exile from the outside world, desperate
for the family she once had.
I'm sure throughout her youth she danced and smiled and wept. Lovers may have
one day gazed into those charcoal eyes, making promises that never could be
kept. I thought of all the wonders that had passed before those eyes: moments
great and small, not always remembered, never quite forgotten. But I never was
to know the truth. Snapping out of my reverie, I watch the stranger stand, and
we board the bus together.
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