"You don't need a silver spoon to eat good food."
-Paul Prudhomme

Sunday, February 1, 2015

Four

Ann's Monday mornings are her days of solace.  For that one day a week, the restaurant is closed, her apartment is spotless, her laundry is clean, and, most importantly, she doesn't have to work.

Ever since that woman came into the restaurant to pick up her dog, Ann hasn't been able to stop thinking about the little animal.  She'd actually warmed up to it.  Everything made more sense once the dog's owner explained that Jackie had gotten out of her apartment and into the hallway, where somebody was smoking an ungodly amount of pot that made the dog stoned and discombobulated.  Ann missed the scruffy thing.

She decides to walk down the block to the park, thinking that maybe she'd see the woman and her dog.

Jackie and her owner aren't there, but there is a group of folks huddled around a campfire.  Ann meanders towards them, noticing how the smoke from the fire goes straight up in the still air, almost like a reverse beam of light.

Ann strikes up conversation with a woman by the fire, talking about nothing in particular.  The woman seems to have something on her mind.  She keeps pacing, a few steps here, a few steps there, and she twirls her yellow spaghetti hair around her fingers as she listens to Ann talk about the restaurant.

After a while, Ann decides she isn't going to run into Jackie the dog today, so she leaves the jittery woman by the campfire and heads home.
"Maybe I'll go adopt a dog next weekend," she thinks.

2 comments: