Friday Fiction: Same street, different lives

1.

Jesus that was close! Fucking buses, you’d think I was invisible. God and the stink they leave behind...

Of course, that’s how it feels sometimes. all the time. Invisible. No one sees me. Not anymore anyway. I could be naked and no one would see me. Why should they anyway, I’m just another middle-aged middle-class nobody.

Look at them. All of those people rushing to wherever the hell they’re going, god, who cares, but look at them, so fast, they don’t have the time, they don’t care about anyone but themselves. They certainly don’t see me, they just push on by. It would be so easy to just let them nudge me a little to far, just drift into traffic.

I wonder if it would hurt.

That’s the problem with suicide by traffic. What if it didn’t work? I don’t want to end up being a cripple in some chair somewhere, god that would be worse, then I couldn’t even do this and this is all I really can do now. I can’t work now, they don’t want me, it would be worse then.

No one wants me.

It would be so easy. The traffic is so fast, there should be better laws. Some one could get hurt. Ha.

All it takes is one deep breath. Close my eyes and step. One. Two. Three.

Shit, I’m even too chicken for that. Can’t do anything fucking right. Not like anyone noticed, not me, not now. Ok. One more time. Don’t think just step. And -

2.

Oh, YES! oh my god, I can’t believe he finally asked, oh yes and yes and yes and look at all these people they are all so beautiful. They’re smiling at me. The air is so fresh and cool on my face and I feel so alive and oh god YES! The cars rushing by are full of people listening to their radios and all I want to do is run out into the street and shout out my news - I’m getting married! I could stop traffic just for the pleasure of hearing the brakes squeal out his name.

I need to call my mother and Sally but right now, right now I just want to hold onto this feeling inside of me hold it tight within me and I could burst with joy. I feel like I’m in a musical, as if I could spread out my arms and start dancing, everyone here on this crowded sidewalk waiting for the light to change would accompany me and it would be like a scene from a 1940s movie. All the sorrow of the world can’t withstand this much joy.

I could dance on the roofs of all the cars, waiting for the light to change, tap across the bus that just stopped over there and no one would yell or scream, they would just all smile at me. I know it because he finally asked and I said yes.

Even the sirens sound like a song to me.

Wait.
I wonder what’s happening over there? Why is everyone running?

I’ll check the news later. I need to get someplace quiet so I can make those calls. Oh god, what a day. I will never forget this street, this moment, these faces.


(c) 2010 Laura S. Packer