Voyeur

I sit in my car and watch the family in the lot next to me. A woman- young, probably in her mid-20s- is standing outside her Toyota Rav-4 in the parking lot. The door to the left back seat is open as she tries to buckle a flailing toddler into her car seat, but the kid doesn’t want to sit. She wants to run.

A man with two dogs on leashes walks by, causing the child to scream with joy. This makes everything harder for the mom, as she wrestles her restless child back into the car seat. Finally one buckle clips, and the child resigns herself to the car seat, to having to go home. The second buckle in the cross clips shut, and she shuts the back seat door.

A mother’s day never ends; holding onto the cart with one hand, she tries to open the trunk with the other, but it doesn’t work. She moves the cart to the bit of space between her car and the next, opens the trunk, and unloads groceries one bag at a time. 

Once she’s done, she pulls the cart away back towards the storefront. Exhausted by her day already, at 11:30 in the morning, she trudges back to the car and gets in the drivers seat. She takes a sip of the iced latte in the cup-holder and shifts into reverse.

I don’t think she saw the woman rushing through the parking lot behind her. She reversed fast, whipping out of her parking space, coming dangerously close to hitting a pedestrian on the way out. But she doesn’t, the car turns, and she’s gone.

The parking lot is ravaged with pedestrians and irate errand-runners; rush in and rush out, that’s all there is to it. 

(Target Parking Lot in Wilton, 2/23/19)

Momentary Blindness

The dining hall is not as loud as usual. On weekends it never is.

“You know-“ I heard. I didn’t hear the rest.

            My phone buzzed, I could feel it.

            Someone is coughing at a table nearby me; she stopped soon after. I hear someone chewing a cookie, someone else sniffle, someone putting a fork on a plate. Someone else is sipping coffee rapidly. The mugs hitting the table sound different than the cups do.

The girl coughed again.

I can smell pancakes- or, I think they’re pancakes. I hope they are. I can smell hot chocolate on the table next to my laptop, the smell of the breakfast of each passerby, the pizza being made, omelets and fruit and dough.  

People continue to come in and out of the dining hall. I’m seated by the entrance, I can hear every footstep. Each conversation in snippets- “I’ll meet you guys right here”, “where’s the restroom?”, “so what do you want to do?”, “and then she…”. The crowds are picking up, I hear a lot of feet shuffling, and a single cane clanking against the floor. The zipping of coats surrounds me as people get up to leave, their brunch coming to a close. The clack of flip-flops against the floor leads me to question the weather, but it’s the weekend, so I don’t question anything. C’est la vie. Someone’s sneakers are squeaking. Perhaps he stepped in syrup.

Over all of this I can hear my laptop keys clack and feel the bumps on the F and J keys as I type, and now I can see again.

(Murry Aikins Dining Hall, 2/2/19)