Strangers

The woman walked into the park, wearing a floppy hat that obscured her facial features and a dowdy trench coat that hung loose upon her spindly figure, slicing through life with her aquiline nose. Her feet buckled in her shoes as she thrust forward. She found her bench in the grey of the dying day and sat. She watched the rustling branches, twirling leaves and vacant lawns, and saw the park wallowing in loss and weeping in silence. In her marrow she burned but her heart sank.

A man sat at the opposite end of the bench, a wandering mind – a wandering soul – escaping the absence that plagued his home. A pendulum of a mind constantly yawing between what is and what isn’t anymore, sepia memories, black & white photographs on the mantel, hallways bereft of frolicking and laughter. Also he saw, the cracking pavement, the dark rippling pond and the collapsed walking bridge, and his mind fissured.

They exchanged a glance and smiled at each other. Strangers giving the little light they had to offer, brightening each other’s day.