coming to a computer screen near you

Maybe. Maybe not.

I've been jotting down some things, you see. And I've been hesitant about sharing them, just because I feel like I always become noncommittal with fiction writing and don't bother finishing anything I've started...plus, I'm not too sure about my sporadic writing skillz. It might just all be juvenile nonsense.

But this time, each "chapter" is a story unto its own, not interwoven with other chapters in the least (at least, I'm not planning on it)...so perhaps it will be easier to work on? On the flip side, the stories are a bit longer, so for those who don't like to read...perhaps you might want to skip this series (and hopefully, there will be more than one posting so that I can actually call it a "series" haha).

So without further ado, I present to you the introduction and a super short "chapter" of what I'm hoping will become a collection of short stories: A COLLECTION OF SIGNIFICANT INTERACTIONS.

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Introduction

There is nothing like a harshly protruding middle finger accompanied by an unmistakable “F___ YOU” mouthed from atop a bicycle (really, he enunciated the two words so impeccably) on the way towards the bus stop to jump start a Monday morning. I mean, your father/mother/sibling/spouse didn’t mean to cut him off — the guy was clearly turning right, but at the last minute, he decided to go straight. So clearly, it’s the bicyclist’s fault. Go take your eco-friendly, spandexed snobbery elsewhere, you might think contemptuously, as the bus drags itself out of the station and heads for the highway; the stick-skinny streets of suburban New Jersey aren’t wide enough for the two of us.

If one random person in that brief, five second interval of your life can shake up your whole day like that, imagine the effects of one not-so-random person over weeks, months, years of your life.

You know what they say: “To the world, you might be one person, but to one person, you might be the world.”

But if you really think about it, every interaction between human beings is significant in some sense. The guy who holds the door open for a second longer so you can slip into your office building, the child looking up out of his car seat towards this gargantuan bus that has pulled up next to his mother’s car, the grandmother who sits calmly by the fountain across the street as the rest of the world rushes by to their next destination. One person might watch, the other might act; one person might speak, the other might nod in response, albeit awkwardly because he or she is not used to having complete strangers say hello in the elevator as if they knew him/her.

Let’s not say, “No man is an island,” as it sounds rather cliched and almost derisive. (We all sometimes need a bit of “island-ing” time: sitting in silence, reflecting and imagining and planning, the rediscovering of oneself, one’s purpose.) So let’s just say, “We were made for community.”

Because we were.

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2.

Bus Stop

A white male in his sixties is sitting on one of the benches outside the bus station. His name is Gary, as indicated by the name tag on his stage crew uniform. He loves musicals, but it would be difficult to discern that from his current stoic exterior. He taps his feet, covered in the finest Italian leather his sister-in-law could find from her favorite discount store — he thought it was a waste of money at first, but now finds them indispensable to his daily workwear, simply because they are black and they are more comfortable than they look.

An Asian woman in her twenties sits on the bench opposite him. She made some errors at work today, and her boss’s condescending words echo in her ears: This is the problem with young people these days — all confidence and no skill; America has become a nation of idiots. She turns up the music on her iPhone to drown out her thoughts as she waits for her older brother to pick her up. She is living with him and his fairly new wife (married nine months ago and already expecting a child) for the summer as she works a temp job.

A black woman in her forties approaches the spot next to Gary. She is dressed in a gray power suit and neon green and pink sneakers. Holding a take-out bag in one hand and a stern black purse in the other, she sits to place a call to her eldest daughter, Susan, to let her know she’ll be home in 20 minutes so could she please start boiling water for the pasta? The protests on the phone from the teenager are audible to the other two. Don’t give me that, the woman warns in a steely voice, one sharpened over years of raising children — four of them.

Gary coughs.
The Asian woman checks the time on her phone agitatedly, the screen revealing a photo of her and her boyfriend? Best friend? Favorite celebrity?
The black woman rubs her eyes with the palms of her hands, sighing heavily once.

A fly runs zig-zags and various ovals around their heads; each swats it away both indignantly and half-heartedly, displeased with its intrusion but too tired to care much about this displeasure.

It smells of wood — Gary mentally identifies the exact species — but if any of them breathe in for too long, they catch the faint waft of garbage from the trash can residing next to the Asian woman.
Apart from the rumbling of the trucks and cars passing by along the street one block north of the station, there is very little noise, very little movement.
The trees ruffle with the wind, the women’s hair flutters faintly, barely perceivably, and Gary coughs again, but they hardly move, each caught in the current of their own thoughts.

Gary begins to fiddle with a pink ribbon on his backpack. His wife is recovering from breast cancer. She worries and upsets him daily by claiming she is well enough to go running every morning. Why he allows for such atrocities to her health he really has no clue, except she is stubborn, has always been more stubborn than him, and he needs to leave the house by 7 a.m. to make it to work on time. And being on time to work is necessary because he needs to earn enough money to pay back her hospital bills. So, he has no choice but to let her do as she wishes with the morning since he knows she can’t do much else once her sister comes at 9. He regrets complying with Emma’s wishes from her late twenties/early thirties to not have children.

A phone rings.
“Wei, mama?”
A few rapid sentences in Chinese fill the air.
“Yes, Rob said he was coming soon. She’s nice. Very clean. Okay, I will.”

A second phone rings.
“What? What’s wrong? I’ll be there s—” The woman darts up. “Where’s your sister at? Just don’t worry, sweetie, calm down and turn off the stove. It’s okay, it’s okay, I’ll clean it up when I get back, okay?” She paces back and forth twice. “Talking with her boyfriend?” She sits back down, shaking her head. “That girl is so braindead sometimes,” she mutters before hanging up.

After some time, a quiet hum from some type of insect nestled into the surrounding trees restores the silence.
They are all waiting.
Each pays more attention to the road as an engine sounds in the distance, approaching, approaching before the vehicle drives on toward its own destination.

The black woman starts to hum. It vaguely sounds like “O Mio Babbino Caro,” though she herself doesn’t know this name; she only heard it for the first time this afternoon coming out of a colleague’s computer. She meant to ask what it was but didn’t get the chance. It sounded peaceful, wholesome. The voice of the violin was sweet, a fact that was surprising to her because she could barely endure the sound of her youngest son’s dogged but inept practicing — the soundtrack of her life at home.

Her tune is interrupted by the arrival of the first car, shortly followed by another. Car doors slam definitively.

The young Asian woman fidgets, pretending not to notice that she is the only one left. She lightly taps her toes and self-consciously nods her head to the beat of her music.
The phone rings.
“What? Oh. Wow. Yeah.” Janice has unexpectedly gone into labor. “The 126 bus? Okay.”
She picks up her bag, heavy with a pair of work shoes, books, and a water bottle, and walks.

[© 2011 Sarah R.]