Prelude
It was a windy day, and cold. It was one of those days that as people walk along the street they stare down so that they can get their chins as deep into their coats as their hands. Nobody can stare at the pavement and think happy thoughts.
One man was wondering how he was going to make both his car and alimony payments at the same time. If worst came to worst, he thought, the bitch could just wait.
One woman was still reeling from what she had learned from her daughter a full week earlier. I'm not ready to be a grandma! Me? She's only seventeen! Dear god, how could You let this happen? What possible reason could You have? And on.
Then there was the couple. Nobody could tell that they were a couple, for they were walking in opposite directions and their paths had not yet crossed.
The man was of perfectly average height. He had brown hair and blue eyes which were, at the moment, his most noticeable feature. They had a certain familiarity about them, as if he and the pavement were old friends. He was plainly used to thinking those pavement thoughts, though his face did not betray them.
The woman was quite a bit shorter. She had red hair and green eyes that were nowhere near the sidewalk. They were pointed there, of course, but they were on another plane, in another dimension, so far removed from this blustery street that it was a wonder she could walk at all withoug running into things.
One storeowner would later make a comment to this effect to his mistress, who would then ask why he was looking at strange women.
Regardless, they were similar enough in age, appearance and apparent background to be a couple. In fact, both the divorcee and the soon-to-be grandmother would have agreed that the two fit together better than anyone else they had seen that day. They were simply too immersed in their own concerns to notice what happened next.
Just as they were about to pass each other, the man and woman both stopped. There was no signal, yet they both went from a swift walk to utter stillness simultaneously and instantly.
Then they looked at each other.
No one in the world could have read surprise on their faces, but they saw it in each other nonetheless.
Then their eyes dropped and jumped from the world to the opposing face. A car, a nose. A street lamp, an ear. A store window, a mole on the cheek.
Finally the man looked down at his feet and scuffed his right shoe on the abused sidewalk. Then he looked up at her face, but not quite in her eyes, and whispered a single word, "Bye."
He whispered because his voice wasn't warmed up. He whispered because it was quitet, despite the wind and traffic, but most of all he whispered because it wasn't what he wanted to say.
She didn't hear him, really, but she didn't need to. She knew from the tone and volume, and myriad other clues, exactly what he said, if not the words used.
They stood for a moment, the space fo a single hearbteat, then each continued their journey to wherever they were going.
Pity that neither saw the tears in the other's eyes.
Slightly edited, Originally published in The Cracked Mirror, January 2001.
