by, Scribble, member of NOISE

She sits. A small, round woman flushed and fatigued after a long day’s work. She shifts uncomfortably, perhaps under my unblinking stare. I turn away. In today’s modern world, there is no time for strangers such as us to make acquaintance. From the corner of my eye I survey her, from her straggled, silver hair down to her all-purpose moccasins. Wrapped in an anorak against the bitter cold, she checks her watch. She glances sharply toward me through deep-set, wrinkled eyes. They have seen far more than I, in my tender youth, could know.
Who is this woman? With eyes like smoking coal against the sickly paleness of her skin. Perhaps she is the grandmother long ago forgotten, warm and caring - wishing to be reunited with the grandchild she once lost. Perhaps she is the mother of the man I’ll one day marry - wary and judgemental as I steal away her only son. Perhaps she lives alone, an exile from the outside world, desperate for the family she once had.
I’m sure throughout her youth she danced and smiled and wept. Lovers may have one day gazed into those charcoal eyes, making promises that never could be kept. I thought of all the wonders that had passed before those eyes: moments great and small, not always remembered, never quite forgotten. But I never was to know the truth. Snapping out of my reverie, I watch the stranger stand, and we board the bus together.