Every day,
there was the same man always sitting on the same bench next to the fountain in
the park. The pigeons would flock to him, feeding on the seemingly endless
supply of crumbs scattered on the ground in front of him. The rain would pour
on him, the sun would shine on him, yet he never noticed either.
People
walking past or bicycling in the park noticed him as much as he noticed the
weather. The children playing in the nearby playground would always wave, as
did the ones playing hopscotch on the crudely drawn chalk outline just past the
pigeons. He smiled to all the children, but never with evil in his heart or
mind.
Dogs being
walked past him would always look and wag their tails regardless of whether or
not their masters noticed this man, which they rarely did. That was the most
remarkable thing about this most unremarkable man. No one noticed him.
Rather, no
one recalled noticing him.
Everyone
saw him, but if one was to ask about him no one would be able to share the same
experience. While one person would see him as a young man wearing faded blue
jeans and work shirt with a beaten cowboy hat pulled low on his face, the next
person questioned would describe an older gentleman in a crisp suit and fedora.
The only two things in common between descriptions would be the fact that he wore
a hat and the shimmer.
The
shimmer is what actually caught the eye of passers-by, but even that changed to
each observer. Some saw it as a faint fog, others saw a halo of pale light,
while others still would say it was like heat pouring off the blacktop on a
summer day.
While
people could see him, they never saw those who sat with him. He always had a
visitor; he never sat alone. Musicians, poets, writers, painters, young girls
looking for their great love, old men mourning theirs. His visitors would talk
and he would listen, his pale lue eyes shifting to fierce green, changing to
grey, brown, black. He listened as they talked, and when they were done talking
the faint traces of a smile would creep up on the corners of his lips.
With the
emergence of the beginning of this smile, his visitors would stand and shake
his hand, and then walk away. Every single one of them would go home, or to a
restaurant, or a coffee house nearby. All of them would get a drink and place
the small pearl he slipped them in that handshake into the drink, but none
would ever recall doing so.
The people
who visited him came for inspiration. Their dreams would be vivid, near
tangible. The next morning they would notice what they hadn’t noticed before.
Songs nearly played themselves, words flowed freely across the page, smiles and
winks found open hearts to receive them.
One cool
spring morning things were different. An early morning fog hugged the ground,
decorating the grass with small diamonds of moisture, birds chirped in the
trees, and a young lady stood before him. The pigeons stared at her, ceasing
their constant feast on the crumbs.
He stared
at her, waiting for her to sit. They locked eyes for seconds. The seconds
turned to minutes, the minutes stretching to hours. The morning fog burned away
with the warmth of the day and then coiled around the trunks of the trees with
the cool night. The fountain reflected the moon back to the sky in a rippled
reflection. No one saw either of them, no one else joined him on the bench, and
neither moved.
The black
night sky shifted to grey, followed by a dusty rose, warm pink, and finally
shifting to pale blue as the next day approached. Still they watched each
other.
He was the
first to move. Slowly his smooth hand emerged from the pocket of his coat and
patted the bench next to him once, and then twice more. She seemed to glide
across the concrete to the bench, sitting silently next to him, their eyes
remaining locked together. She leaned towards him, finally pulling her eyes
from his, resting her head on his shoulders, sliding closer to him.
“Samiel,
my love. I long for you each day. Thoughts of you fill my mind. I smell your
presence with every breath. When, Samiel? When will you come back to me?”
He stares
into space in silent response, his eyes shifting to a pale grey. For the first
time the corners of his mouth shift downward. He turns his head to gaze at her
and she brings her head up, returning the tender gaze he favors her with.
They kiss,
tenderly, eyes closed. From behind closed lids tears slip down both their
cheeks, falling through the morning air, landing in her hand where they catch
the rising sun and solidify, perfect iridescent pearls.
Their kiss
ends, they pull away. She hands him the pearls and he returns his hands to his
pockets, the faint trace of a smile returning to his face.
