The crows were out in force this morning seeking breakfast. They were urgent and demanding -- daring. Coming closer and closer to the open, yawning doorway begging fresh air in the heavy, rain threatening dawn. The crows flocked in. An unseemly coven of black feathers dotting the ground and working in unison to gain the limited supply of bread crumbs and crackers. Some pecking, some watching and others chasing squirrels from the feast.
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It was still hot, even in the shade, but at least there was a breeze that moved the air and licked the sweat sheen on my skin to offer a bit of relief. The air was still with the silent hum of late summer and the soft sigh of the licking breeze dancing in the tree tops. A few hungry mosquitos circled the beaded sweat adding their tickle to the trickling beads of salty moisture.
I’d forgotten my sweater I realized as I felt the chill creeping through my lightweight rain jacket. Standing numb in the line of commuters waiting and then jostling forward as buses rolled in and pulled away in a steady tide of transportation. I wondered if the office would be warm or if someone would have left all the windows open again. Everyone seemed to stream out of the office at day end. Streaming out like ants making their way from the same exit and then trailing off to meld with the paths of mutually oriented commuters. And the open windows stayed open, forgotten as they yawned above the old fashioned steam radiators cranking more heat than necessary for a balmy autumn afternoon. Open windows that sucked in almost liquid air in the early morning turning the brick oven into an ice box.
It was night. An incoming storm was tossing the trees outside. The windchimes clattered a weird and chaotic melody. Rain hadn't yet started to fall. Not quite a dark and stormy night, but almost. I was tired from working on the review of a manuscript. I'd tossed it aside and taken up solitaire on my iPad while downing hot camomile tea so I could sleep -- at some point, hopefully. My mind was furiously trying to solve the puzzle of Mary. Trying to understand what made her tick, what thoughts went through her head.
The bus jockeys along over the rough road like a stagecoach or carriage ambling over a pioneer byway of cobblestones. Some of the passengers strike up conversations over trivial day to day tidbits or report ceaselessly on wannabe vacations, the cutest grandchildren in the world, or work before it even starts. Get a life. Let the rest of us sleep or doze or read or escape into a book, please. At each stop, the riders amble onto the coach selecting pre-assigned seats from the day before and the day before that and the day before that -- from weeks on end of riding the same monotonous drill to the same monotonous destination through the same monotonous weather. Even the changes of seasons are not well marked or recognized in the dark from behind the mirrored shield of the illuminated coach. The bus jiggles relentlessly as it struggles to reach freeway speed as it trundles forward to the end of its route so that it can repeat the same route in the other direction, turn and repeat until rush hour is over. Steady articulation of any task, even reading, is near impossible with the constant jostling. Latecomers redistribute as others leave at a main hub. Some are still contained and carried forward beyond the hubbub of activity at a central location. No lattes or donuts or biscuits McStyle. Just more stopping and going and stopping and departing and continuing towards that daily destination called employment.
The room filled with expectant faces of a broad array – age, gender, ethnicity. Papers rustled, chairs groaned into collective capacity, voices droaned in an uneven hum, while purses, pouches, bags, briefcases and satchels settled over, under and next to chairs. Alternative music bumped out of ceiling speakers and a PowerPoint information blitz displayed just a little fast over two big screens on the walls.
Her office was at the end of the hall. She never turned on the lights and sat hunched over the keyboard while squinting at the monitor. Whenever you walked into her office, she wouldn’t look up or acknowledge you. She would slowly swivel her chair to face you, shuffle through a stack of papers and then say, “What’s up?” Croaking out the leading question like a toad sitting on a lily pad waiting for the unsuspecting insect.
Her skin was the soft mocha color of an exotic spice. Dark, tightly wound ringlets of hair were pulled back from a high forehead that pushed away from thin eyebrows of jet over long, smoky eye lashes brushing sloping eyes. A sharp, angled nose jetted over full, perfectly formed lips that were slightly moist. She was a picture perfect classic, like a master's painting escaped from a frame.
He stood there in tenny runners, but not the cool ones--the therapeutic kind--khaki shorts, a t-shirt emblazoned with "drink beer," and thick horn-rimmed glasses that were joined to his head by a neoprene frog. Yesterday's paper, folded into quarters, was pressed unusually close to his face while he examined the funnies. Around the wrist holding the paper was a bright, neon-green band expounding "Comic-Con Seattle 2009." On the other was a thick, square, dark metallic "Batman Forever" wrist watch.
She didn't walk, she sashshayed, her rump a jiggly bustle underneath the robin's egg blue jersey skirt. Her plump hands, beglittered with cheap, rhinestone costume jewelry, flitted up and down in waved hellos--but not waves really--quick, stacatto, finger-fluttering crescendos of greeting. The criss-cross buckles on the toes of her ballet flats made her appear even more pigeon-toed than she actually was. But her smile, yes, that glowing, radiant smile, drew curious looks to her happy face and laughing eyes.
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AuthorHace Williams is a Seattle area author and journalist. Archives
December 2015
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