A Day in the Life
No alarm, she wakes when the mood strikes, or rather, makes a conscious effort to move aside dreams for reality. The effort is real today. She’d been dreaming of home.
Today she rises and slowly moves through the motions of dress and hygiene. Her bag waits on the hook beside the apartment door beneath the coat and scarf. On work days, it hangs dormant like an ignored pet, patient for the time she’ll pick it up after donning her coat.
Today is her day off. Today she relaxes the façade she’s built around her. Today, she lets her shoulders droop with loneliness and pulls the bag off its hook. It’s not that heavy, nor that large. On the way down the stairs, she pulls out the headphones and flips through her music collection to find the “Thoughtful” playlist.
Cocooned in her own little world she lets her mind wander, ignoring the path her feet follow. She walks through the city with the pedestrian air of a tourist. Yesterday, in heels and her newest suit, she’d strode, confident, knowing exactly where she was going and how to get there.
Today, ignoring the highest skyscrapers that always make her feel like an ant in a grass forest, she meanders through the throng of people watching their faces, taking notes in her head.
She finds a bench, pulls out the notebook and writes as much as she can quickly. Still, it’s a good thirty minutes before she puts it away and the people around her are no longer the people she’d written about. Two weeks ago, her fingers would have been frozen. Today, she could almost imagine the clear, bright air from where she grew up.
Her fingers brush the tiny point-and-shoot camera. Is today a people-picture day? Or a place-picture day? Or a thing-picture day? What does her mood tell her? She’s only two blocks down from her own apartment building and it feels like a different world. Should she roam farther or just sit here for a while?
The bus answers her question. It pulls up in a nasty cloud and bone-thrumming squeal. Once the doorway is free from exiting passengers, she climbs in, flashes her pass and finds a seat in the middle. OK, maybe the bus was a bad decision. Body odor is the most pungent scent, especially mixed with the grease and oil from the bus. Still she sits there as long as she can, writing when the bumps don’t jar her grave and lasts all of two stops. At the third, she gets off, and meanders her way down the sidewalk.
Except for the shops, she could be back on her own block. The people change so quickly she feels as if she were in a whirlpool of faces. This doesn’t suit her mood. It’s a park day. Glancing at the street signs, she decides it’s not too far and takes off in the general direction.
She stops at a coffee shop that seems familiar and orders something from the guy behind the counter. She must have done just this often enough before for the guy to remember her. Even without the power suit, heels, makeup and long, loose hair, he winks at her and purposely brushes her hand when he hands her the drink. She thanks him softly reflecting on the dirty jeans, sneakers, and pony tail that are her off day attire. She has to look down past the open folds of her coat to remember what shirt she’d put on and smiles at the huge cannabis leaf in a cloud of purple, a gift from someone in her past, laden with sweet memories.
Trailing down the lane of memory, she gives over control of her body to her body which takes her directly to her favorite spot beside the fountain. It is spring, not cold enough to freeze, so the water dances. Chlorine hints the air.
She sits, lost in thoughts for a long while, not really seeing the park around her, the people picnicking, the Frisbee players, the strollers. It’s the overpowering scent of cologne that brings her to reality and some boys roll past on their skateboards. She pulls the camera out of the bag and points in their direction.
Two of them pose in their ripped jeans hanging past the point of decency. Knit caps in wild colors rest askew on their heads. One, the tallest, the one who’s bathed in cologne, poses in the middle with his finger and his thumb in the shape of an “L” aimed at her. They are close enough to be looking down at her. She snaps the picture waiting for her confidence to fall, her self-respect to plummet.
When it doesn’t, she smiles. They didn’t know who she was any more than she knew who they were going to be: maybe fat, balding divorcees hiding in a cubicle somewhere.
She rises from the ground, brushes off the loose grass, removes the headphones from her ears and drops them down deep into the bag. Now she hears the laughter, the bright gaiety from others sharing the park on such a wonderful day. As she walks, she snaps pictures: the toddler learning how to walk, the couple discovering each other, the elderly lady on the park bench reaching up for the drink brought by an elderly man gazing down at her in loving amazement.
She makes her slow way back to the coffee shop, waits in line before the counter, her heart only pounding softly. Facing once again the guy who’d winked at her, she said, “I don’t want anything, thank you. My name is Darla. When’s your break?”