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workshop vignette
Aug. 2nd, 2013 10:19 am[This was an event that happened nearly 20 years ago. I have turned it over in my head ever since, but never written it down. I always thought it would be a poem.]
I'm waiting at the last bus stop in this well-groomed suburb, knowing I have not gotten the job for which I interviewed, not sorry because I knew as soon as I walked in that I didn't want to work there, but sorry because I needed the job, and I wanted them to want me, and I can tell myself they were likely looking for someone older than 22, but I know that it was something else, something offputting about me, perhaps I shook his hand too vigorously, or perhaps it was the skirt, long and full instead of pencil, or the lack of makeup, or just that I can't pass for their social class, that I don't -know- what type of skirt to wear, or what color eyeliner, that I can't shake hands limply. I wouldn't have lasted there two weeks. What I really want is for it to have been the kind of place that I -could- have worked at, the kind I imagined when I read the want ad.
It has stopped raining, but it's late October and the air still feels heavy and dull. What few leaves had been left on the trees were knocked off by the morning's downpour, and the bare branches are dark with damp as if with black mold. Along the curb, the fallen leaves have been crumpled and crushed by passing cars, the rain turning them into paste. What little color was left in each leaf has mixed together into grey-brown drabness.
Near the middle of the road, there is one intact leaf. It throbs with glowing red and orange, shimmers in the breeze with a sheen of water. It is half-stuck to the damp pavement, fluttering hopefully with each gust, but never breaking free. A car approaches, and I am not aware that I'm holding my breath until the car has passed, tires straddling the leaf, its wake almost enough force to pull the leaf from the asphalt. But only almost.
I am poised now to rescue it. It's only four paces if that, but now suddenly the cars come one after the other, an early rush hour, or parents picking up their children from after-school dance and soccer and tutoring and karate. They are in a hurry, and I don't dare, and I watch the wheels pass so close, it shivers, I anthropomorphize, I know this, it's ridiculous, I know this, my hands should not be clenched, my throat aching with the desire to yell, to tell them to stop, don't you see, just stop and give me five seconds, that's all it will take. An SUV's wake provides enough wind to finally release it from the pavement, but it swirls in an unseen current, only a couple of inches off the ground, coming to rest again only a foot farther down the road, and closer to the path of the passenger tires, and I don't want to look, but I have shifted past the front of the bus stop to witness, so it won't go alone, I anthropomorphize, it's ridiculous, I hear the low whine and turn to see the school bus coming, slow but unstoppable, do they have double wheels in the back, because if so, and I don't look away, I watch the spot I can't see through the bus, until the bus recedes, the spot is empty now. Then behind the bus, a flash of orange six inches off the pavement, a foot, spiraling up, and out, skidding to a slow stop on the sidewalk like a plane landing on a runway.
How long have I not been breathing?
I'm waiting at the last bus stop in this well-groomed suburb, knowing I have not gotten the job for which I interviewed, not sorry because I knew as soon as I walked in that I didn't want to work there, but sorry because I needed the job, and I wanted them to want me, and I can tell myself they were likely looking for someone older than 22, but I know that it was something else, something offputting about me, perhaps I shook his hand too vigorously, or perhaps it was the skirt, long and full instead of pencil, or the lack of makeup, or just that I can't pass for their social class, that I don't -know- what type of skirt to wear, or what color eyeliner, that I can't shake hands limply. I wouldn't have lasted there two weeks. What I really want is for it to have been the kind of place that I -could- have worked at, the kind I imagined when I read the want ad.
It has stopped raining, but it's late October and the air still feels heavy and dull. What few leaves had been left on the trees were knocked off by the morning's downpour, and the bare branches are dark with damp as if with black mold. Along the curb, the fallen leaves have been crumpled and crushed by passing cars, the rain turning them into paste. What little color was left in each leaf has mixed together into grey-brown drabness.
Near the middle of the road, there is one intact leaf. It throbs with glowing red and orange, shimmers in the breeze with a sheen of water. It is half-stuck to the damp pavement, fluttering hopefully with each gust, but never breaking free. A car approaches, and I am not aware that I'm holding my breath until the car has passed, tires straddling the leaf, its wake almost enough force to pull the leaf from the asphalt. But only almost.
I am poised now to rescue it. It's only four paces if that, but now suddenly the cars come one after the other, an early rush hour, or parents picking up their children from after-school dance and soccer and tutoring and karate. They are in a hurry, and I don't dare, and I watch the wheels pass so close, it shivers, I anthropomorphize, I know this, it's ridiculous, I know this, my hands should not be clenched, my throat aching with the desire to yell, to tell them to stop, don't you see, just stop and give me five seconds, that's all it will take. An SUV's wake provides enough wind to finally release it from the pavement, but it swirls in an unseen current, only a couple of inches off the ground, coming to rest again only a foot farther down the road, and closer to the path of the passenger tires, and I don't want to look, but I have shifted past the front of the bus stop to witness, so it won't go alone, I anthropomorphize, it's ridiculous, I hear the low whine and turn to see the school bus coming, slow but unstoppable, do they have double wheels in the back, because if so, and I don't look away, I watch the spot I can't see through the bus, until the bus recedes, the spot is empty now. Then behind the bus, a flash of orange six inches off the pavement, a foot, spiraling up, and out, skidding to a slow stop on the sidewalk like a plane landing on a runway.
How long have I not been breathing?
