Saturday, April 23, 2005

Stories from the parking lot

Dresden, downtown. Tuesday in the afternoon. At the parking lot, a woman with red hair feeds the parking-meter, runs out of change. She looks nervous, uneasy. I throw some money into the slot, she looks surprised. 'Coz it's such a beautiful day, I say, just to relax her. She thanks me effusively, waving her hand to me. Leaving the parking lot, she turns to me again from the distance, smiles. In my mind there is a movie going on. A tiny, ridiculous gesture that sets in motion the big things... The woman with red hair gets into her car elatedly, sings while driving. In the supermarket she cheerfully asks the ill-tempered shop girl about her children, the shop girl smiles for the very first time for days, this evening she is not going to turn on the TV and to yell at her kids and to regret later. In front of her house, the woman talks to the boy next door, the boy next door replies hesitantly, still unbelieving. The next day he is going to stop blackmailing the guy with freckles after school, the guy with freckles could explain the mystery of math to him, maybe? The woman gets upstairs, with each step she gets younger and younger, tonight she is going to beget a child with her lover and to bring new life into the world... If I had snarled at her (hurry up! I've got no time to waste), she may have got into her car with anger, may have run over somebody on the road. At night she would go to bed early and feign tiredness to her lover, while the shop girl would sit in the kitchen crying. The guy with freckles could not sleep at night while the boy next door would sit on the doorstep looking up to the lighted windows and volunteer for the army someday and get into war and abandon lives. And the woman with red hair would stand at the parking lot again someday searching the sky with flickering eyes while time passes...

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