Here at the intersection was an old man at a blue mailbox, checking his addresses and stamps before mailing his letters. Inches from him, but seeming not to notice him at all, were two men and a woman in business suits, raving loudly about the food at Andres and grumbling about the boss. The businesswoman had her head raised in a gesture of empathy to what one of her companions had said. But her companion had turned away. The old man at the mailbox looked up at a small group of students crossing the road.
He and she looked up as well. The students were their age, but were unfamiliar. Surely they must go to another school. Yes, and yet the students looked startlingly familiar. He noticed the way they were walking. He was sure now that he did not know them. The girl in the group was dressed very similarly to his own companion. The girl's hair bounced as she took a small leap up from the crosswalk. The two others of the group just stepped up casually, as if they had walked that way many times and were bored with it. But their heads were up and their eyes looked around, noticing new things. The eyes of one read, genuinely interested, the sign of the store he and she had just left.
The students looked like his friends. Not that their faces were the same, but their manner. The way they joked and talked; the way they carried themselves. He felt as if he knew them already, though he could not. He wanted to stop them and ask them about their lives, though he could not. "Why must I be separated from these people so like me?" He thought, "how is it we can share the same sidewalk and manner and yet never know each other?"
She tugged on his arm. "Come on! We've got to get to the station!"
He hadn't realized that he had paused. He turned to her and then back to the students. They were very near now, aparently not noticing him. But they turned and stopped.
"Hey," one asked him, "do you have a cigarette?"
"Sure." He fished a pack out of his pocket, pulled one out and offered it. "Light?" He mimed flicking a lighter.
The student smiled and took the cigarette. "No, thanks," he said, pulling out a worn packet of matches.
When it was lit, the students turned and headed on their way. They were casual, as if they walked down this street and asked for cigarettes every day. The girl raised her hand to emphasize what she was saying. The old man had mailed his letters and crossed the street at the light with the rest. The woman at the cafe shook her head and then laughed at something she was reading. The air smelled of basil and diesel smoke. A woman opened her car window.
But he did not move. He stood with his cigarettes in hand and stared vacantly at the street.
She pulled his arm again and said, "Come on! We've got to go now or we'll be late!"
He turned to her and smiled a little, but she was already on her way down the street. He turned back to look at the students, but they were gone. Without looking, he turned and followed her in the other direction, tears welling up in his eyes.
-Stephen Foskett, 9/92