The Nice Thing About Strangers
Creative Non-Fiction Short Stories. :) Travel, Oldsters, Love, and Compassion.
My Favorite Things
Perhaps he thought acting natural would mean he could escape my blog. However, he was a.) an old man, b.) wearing navy suspenders, c.) using a cane, and d.) eating directly in my line of sight at Panera. He’s lucky I didn’t join him for lunch.
The clerk brought a sandwich and a glass of water with two lemons to his table, the old man greeting it with thank yous. His cane held its own chair to the right. The man folded his hands to pray over his turkey sandwich, before extracting ceaseless strings of red onion.
Halfway through his meal, he checked his watch, ate the other half of the sandwich, and polished his apple. He nodded at half of a couple nearby, a similarly aged man in glasses with flip-up shades. The Flip-up Man had no cane, but moved very slowly as he joined his wife at a table. Suspenders sat up straighter, finished his water and tipped the cup to take out the lemons. He ate both slices of lemon without flinching. He stood, opted to take his own dish to the bin, and marched out without blinking over the beaming, fawning woman scrawling away in her notebook.
–Colorado Springs, Colorado
The Nice Thing About Strangers 