TROOPS

He could see I was in a vulnerable position.

We collect coins and bills, worth next to nothing, from the places we’ve been and they haunt us  we die and force our descendants to throw them away. We keep them not because we’ll use them again but because we never will.

At the appetizing store in the big long line two girls began to sing in harmony. Their voices chimed against the din of numbers called, orders recited, delivery guys coming through. A third girl, younger, sang along a little but then stopped, self-conscious. The song picked up and stopped from time to time. A little while later, and suddenly, the third girl began to cry. I watched her face, wet with tears. “Nothing’s gonna ever make me feel better,” she wailed at her mom.  I imagined what kind of heartbreak, what deep despair might cause someone to feel this way. Her mother knew, and said so: she was hungry.

When we see words on a page, we believe the words are there, but we can’t quite be sure.

As I waited in line at the food truck I turned to watch the passersby. Workers, nondescript. I tried to read their faces for anything of note. All wore the same slightly grim expression. The street mask. Even someone talking to his companion. The same look of mild concern. What’s on our minds?