Through The Glass Darkly

By Gwen Angstrom

When you’ve sat through twenty hours straight of every conceivable reality /sports/CSI show and you’re stuck in a wheelchair and can’t even run around the block, you know you’ll go even more insane if you don’t try something different.  That’s when I started to watch her.

She came to the bus stop across the street from my apartment window at 7:55 a.m. on the dot every morning dressed in the most – no other way to say it – joyful clothes I’d ever seen on a woman.  Brilliant red silks, soft blue cashmeres, rich white wools and they all fit her abundant curves in the most stimulating way.   I’m a normal man. I was stimulated.

I’m no voyeur, but I was looking for some reason to get up in the morning and she gave it to me. I always sat to the side of the window and looked through the mostly closed blinds in a very discreet manner so no one could see me.  Those were, without a doubt, the best five minutes of my day!  I knew when the bus was coming because she always reached up and flipped her long auburn hair back from her collar just before it rounded the corner.  Kind of like she was saying to me, “Have a good day.”  And because of her, I did.

The morning she didn’t come, I hate to admit, was devastating.  The only person at the bus stop was a man in a grey pinstripe carrying a briefcase.  I kept waiting, checking the clock to make sure it was running, and then the bus came. And left.  And the man was still standing there.  And he was staring right at me.  You ever get the feeling that you’re not seeing what you think you are?  As I watched him, my mind dressed him in red silk and long auburn hair.  His eyes were her eyes.

When I rubbed a hand across my face and looked up, he was gone. I was still lost in thought when the doorbell rang.