She had two little dogs…white and fluffy dogs…well, not luminously white, actually. A bit frosted grey around the edges. They had puffy ribbon bows around their necks , one in sky blue and the other in pink, naturally. She must have fed the little monsters amphetamines because they zipped around on the end of their leashes like tweekers on welfare day. I tried to drink my apple juice while those things snapped and yapped at passing strangers…I kept looking around for a pit bull…There’s never one of those damn things around when you need one.
She was a round lady…I had the impression that if she tripped on one of those leashes she’d roll end over end. I wanted her to be unpleasant. It wasn’t her fault . It was just that kind of day. I wasn’t even sure I was seeing her correctly. She might have been taller and less round than I thought. An argument with my bank…a split in the seam of my car seat…missed my tax deadline…I tied my shoes carefully because a broken lace would have sent me back to bed. And it was grey and cloudy and summer was just over….and the early alarmist warnings about how cold winter will be were just filtering out of the fear mongers. Look, I just wanted to drink my juice and read my book and chill for half an hour or so. But there was that hat. Where the hell would one get a hat like that? Maybe she made it…in which case, maybe it was art!
About three tables away she was sitting…and for a minute the sun broke through and lit up that weird hat. And just for an instant I was blown away to Paris in the thirties and a dragon lady called La Mome Bijou. Drinking absinthe and collecting gossip…knowing and seeing and enduring the sarcasm and smiles of the “smarter set”…she left a poignant memory of the person within…and a warning that the cult of beauty…was a fraud. A lot of us older people feel that way now.
So I silently thanked her…withdrew my nasty little thoughts…and went back to my book…feeling better about everything.
Chagal4's Blog 
September 25, 2015 at 2:24 pm |
Brillant!