She thought it was a small cat scurrying across the lanes, skipping yellow lines two at a time, trying to avoid the eastbound red and white truck impregnated with cola products and the line of thread-connected, bumper-to-bumper cars headed west. She watched as its slick black fur glistened with patches of white as it drank in and reflected the rays of the sun. At second glance, it must be a skunk, she thought. She wrinkled her nose in an anticipated disgust, bracing herself against the odor the poor, frightened animal was sure to give off.
But the stench never materialized.
She kept staring and thought she saw quills rise and fall within its pelt. A black porcupine? Is there such a thing, she asked? Or maybe it’s one of those possum thingies. Oh-possum is the correct name, Sarah, she reminded herself - opossum.
She adjusted her glasses. Not the ones she usually wore (she couldn’t find those). But the old ones, the old emergency ones, gold-rimmed and scratched which were tucked away in her nightstand drawer. She adjusted them again and blank twice, setting the book she was reading down beside her.
But then she thought better of it and picked up her purse, retrieved her book and moved further down the park lane to the bench closest to her building. She sat down and then noticed that the little guy had made it across the roadway.
“No! It’s not a damn porcupine, you idiot”, she blurted out, half chuckling. It has to be one of those rare, black squirrels I saw on the Discovery Channel, she thought. “With that Hannah guy. Or was that Letterman?”
She tried to go back to the book that had so enthralled her moments before but couldn’t concentrate on the word-worn pages. She lost sight of him, briefly, and wondered if he were hungry and had a family. Or was he a loner like she? When he reappeared from behind the park’s fence and started to make his way down the lane towards Sarah, she reached in her purse rummaging for that granola bar she swore she had yet to devour. She found the empty rapper.
“Sorry, kiddo … I must’ve eaten it”, she said into her purse.
And when she looked up, she shook her head in disbelief, causing her ill-fitting glasses to slide towards the tip of her nose.
“You, idiot”, she said aloud to herself as he blew across her boots, landing a few steps away from the bench and settling in a patch of sun-burned grass. “It’s a damn plastic bag!”
She huffed and sighed and continued shaking her head. And when her phone beeped, alerting her that her break time was over, she gathered her things, stood and as she walked away, she saw the black bag keeping company with other unwanted trash and said, “I guess you’re not alone after all.”
* * * THE END * * *
k.v.khai (c) 2009
Not only were figurative
