Yesterday, I waited, on the cold damp green-peeling-painted park bench, for something to happen.

Two dogs passed, ahead of their owner, running together lopsidedly holding the same stick between them. I could smell wet dog. Their owner did not greet me but looked at me strangely as I sat there dripping and drinking a carton of chocolate milk. Perhaps he smelled wet human. I was envious of his umbrella and the way the two dogs lay down their stick in front of him. Asking. I watched them as they rounded the corner away from me and further into the park.

After they were out of sight I looked around hoping for something undefined. But now I could only smell the chilled soggy earth that lies under the graying grass and felt trickles of rain on my scalp, down my head, under my scarf and onto by back. And could only see the misty dead dullness of the sky that seemed unmoving above my head and feel a snot-filled sneeze growing about to unleash itself into my woolly mittened hand.

I forgot my kleenexes, you see.

Labels: being alive, interpreting and reinterpreting, moments, sighs, story