did you ever see someone so striking you were magnetically drawn to them that took place when i walked out the safeway supermarket that day i was stranded in hawaii after three months of job training on my bottom dollar went to the store to buy a coke february nineteen-eighty-two dripping from the ninety-degree island strolling the steaming cement sidewalk complaining to myself whimpering within begging for an answer for marching orders like praying please send me a messenger felt abandoned by friends not even a christmas card the past holidays not even a card to say thinking of you i wasnt embracing the suck from the cashier coke in hand leaving near the entrance grocery baskets she an elder lady stuffing plastic bags into her hip dress pockets puffed out like a mountie looked like a bag-lady her lizard-like skin leathery orange from the island sun i said hello asking her how's the day and asked if she were looking for hand to her car she said no but you do then fixing me with her smiling gaze we exited the glass doors side by side (( i don't have family or friends in hawaii just a hoale mainlander visitor from ohio for the short training camp but no air ticket back )) but this elder lady told me all about myself as we walked the length of the store's parking lot she told me details of my whining soliloquy while footing to the safeway an hour past like she were listening on my shoulder in my head to my self-talk i swooned as if having a panic attack found it hard to catch my breath she saw like a window inside my head i mouthed asking how how but i only gasped with lips quivering she put her finger to my lips and said shush stop you can't even begin to understand how i've walked with you from birth she told me of the whole sweep of my history everything she said true - spot on we came to her car blue model thirty years out of date a birdcage in the back seat sat her wide frame down into that small car me still standing eyes wide in partial shock rolled down the window and said turn around oneeighty i did don't even peek i didn't turn back i did she smiled with an envelope in hand for me don't read this until i'm out of here turn around again i did as she commanded waited... waited... no sound of the blue car's engine turning over i wouldve heard the ears were seriously listening after a while i looked over the shoulder the car just vanished no drivers were leaving the lot i looked at a distance just empty exit roads but the envelope still in my hand tore it and inside a christmas card baby jesus held by mother mary her writing inside remember me 3.5 10/10 © Brian Peter Hodgkinson
The Christmas Card
29
Apr