Winter
I am standing outside after a winter illness.
I look around and see my neighbour sitting on his stoop smoking a cigarette. A single man near 60. He was the victim of a hit and run about a month ago. He was following all the rules, doing everything right, but it simply did not matter. Suddenly, out of nowhere, he is flying through the sky.
And when he landed his jaw was broken, his face covered in lacerations, his body traumatized. They probably told him he was lucky in the ER. Upon release he was so ashamed of the way he looked that he would not answer the door or come outside, and the soup Rachelle made for him had to be delivered through an intermediary so she would not see the man inside the dark apartment.
His quiet pain.
He doesn’t see me yet, and looking at him I notice how much thinner, how much sadder he looks in this unguarded moment. And then he spots me, and I realize that he is probably thinking exactly the same thing about me.
And so we just nod at one another.
And saying nothing, let the thin sunlight of the day fall upon us.
