独家优惠奖金 100% 高达 1 BTC + 180 免费旋转

Human Encounter

Many human encounters are like this one.

The noonday sun tried to break through the canopy of trees. She sat at one of her favorite benches on Central park not too distant from her office.

Something drew her attention.

She looked past him, past his gaze, she sensed he’d been watching her for some time now. Well, he wasn’t really pointedly watching but was without question insinuating an interest, a sort of ricocheting curiosity. Usually this kind of interest by a stranger would cause concern, but the man obviously was the furthest thing away from a threat.

And yet.

She was having the last bite of her still warm pretzel she’d bought from the corner vendor.

Certainly, Melanie did not perceive this man as posing a physical threat. He sat on the corners’ concrete outcropping behind him well-tended yet free-growing park plants.

It was a place of great civic pride. Melanie was not very conscious of this particular virtue at the moment. In fact, she was more curious about this guy’s sideways awareness of her. She wasn’t dressed in anything revealing, stylish black pumps, jeans, not overly tight though neither baggy. Her white cotton button blouse had sleeves rolled up halfway, buttoned almost to the top.

“I know you.” The man hopped off his perch and strode over to where Melanie was.

“No, I don’t think you do.”

“I think so, young lady.” Perhaps just a little too pronounced. He stepped towards her, though not overly so yet still invading sacred distance.

“Are you bothering me, sir? Or, or stalking me? I’m on my work break and don’t need this. If you get any closer, I will scream.”

He did not step back as one would do, having just received a valid warning though neither did he press forward. He simply remained in place, as though confused about what he was supposed to do.

“How old are you, young lady, I’m fifty-eight, though I know I look much younger. You really have nothing to be concerned about. You are what? Twenty-two maybe?”

Despite her now increasing heart rate and growing discomfort, she found his comment struck a good chord. It wasn’t often anyone paid her the supreme compliment of saying she looked what in fact was eight years younger than her actual thirty.

Given his diminutive presentation. Almost ridiculous, especially if in fact he was flirting with her. She couldn’t tell. Her fear soon stilled.

As if he'd read her mind he said: “I’m not flirting with you, young lady, so you needn’t be afraid or put off.”

“So what are you doing?” quickly correcting herself she said, “okay so what do you want?”

“I’m quite certain I know you. Are you from Rhode Island?”

“No, I’m not mister. I suggest that it’s best if you go about your business, you don’t seem like, dangerous, but I have things on my mind and am preparing for a presentation.”

“Has no one ever approached you simply to share a few words? You seem familiar but then again I am more than likely wrong. Young lady, how difficult does it have to be to simply say hello? Is that now in these times, you know, prohibited?” He reached up and removed his blue Tigers ball cap, scratched his full head of prematurely white hair before setting it back on.

Melanie’s expression was one of ever so slight confusion, less fear now, something in her posture, slant of her head showed if not a welcome then neither no longer a ‘get away from me’.

The man indirectly looked her up and down and back again, as though making it obvious to show that she was not preparing anything. Of course, she could have been preparing in her mind.

She wondered if perhaps he’d reached a similar conclusion.

He had.

“I feed the pigeons every day on the other side of the park. For some inexplicable reason the pigeons have thinned out on fifth, so I hoped that maybe here on this side they might be here. Last year in early spring a frost killed off most of them.”

It was clear to Melanie there were very few pigeons.

“You do know, sir, that over at the lake pavilion they sell little bags of grain, like corn, for people to feed the pigeons over there. Why don’t you try over there?” Melanie immediately regretted potentially giving the man an opening for further conversation. At the same moment, realizing her comment could’ve been misread and that it meant for him to stop bothering. She wondered why she would have such a thought.

The moment that had at first been available to scream came and went. Screaming now just wouldn’t fit. Screaming would seem ridiculous. Oh hell, she thought, what’s the harm?

“Haven’t you ever fed the pigeons?” He stopped, and it appeared he’d stopped talking mid-sentence, which was not the case, just seemed so. “Surely you’ve fed the pigeons.”

“Uh no not really, no time and they’re dirty, they carry bugs and bacteria.” Melanie most briefly scrunched up her pretty nose, expressing her disgust towards the birds. She immediately regretted the move. She knew that maybe three different times with this man, she’d said something she wished she hadn’t. She wondered what was it about him that was bumping her off her game.

“Oh, come now, you aren’t serious. I mean, I think I know you better, enough to know these are not your thoughts, I…” He stopped to throw a few crumbs from a small bag to a lone bird cautiously walking towards them. “Did you know pigeons symbolize peace all around the world?”

Once again, Melanie dismissed his conversation. “You don’t know me sir and why are you talking to me, this is giving me a certain discomfort you should know. Do you go up to people in the park? Are you aware how that might cause concern?” Immediately surprising herself yet again with another stupid thing that came out of her mouth.

She vowed to keep her mouth closed and to bring this conversation to a close.

The man looked into her eyes and he slowly did a half turn so that he was no longer front and center of her. He grew silent; he tossed bits of grain feed out to the sidewalk where there was just the lone bird. “Young lady, I’m just trying to talk, to share words with you.”

“There are no pigeons here, I’m sure you see that, right? There is the one though.”

“They might come.” He said, smiling hugely. The crows' feet at the edges of his eyes pronounced.

“I guess.” The man was handsome, had been really handsome as a young man.

Melanie self-consciously looked about her closely, as though around her feet to pick up a backpack or something, but there wasn’t anything.

“You’re leaving now?” The man kept his half-turn away from Melanie, tossed a few more bits out to the sidewalk.

It occurred to her he’d stood apart to lessen her discomfort.

“Yes, I have to get back to work.”

“Oh, okay, well maybe we’ll see you here again?”

“Uh yeah, I don’t know. Hope the pigeons show up.”

The man smiled in response. “My name is Paul, as in Peter, Paul and Mary.”

She smiled, just barely a hint.

“How about you?” Paul asked.

“What?” Melanie blurted.

In some inner space, she once again held herself responsible for yet another comment, misspoken, and walked away. “I must go now, Paul.” She started to turn away then stopped and said “Melanie”. Paul gazed at her as though his hearing was off a little, she repeated: “My name is Melanie.”

She balled up the wax paper napkin wrap the pretzel had come in and she dropped it into a nearby barrel.

The lone pigeon had its full of grain and flew away. As it flapped its powerful wings and lifted into the air, the wind it produced blew aside a few feathers and pieces of grain.

As she left her cubicle for the day, it mildly surprised her to be thinking of her earlier encounter. A small card amongst a few others she’d taped up on her wall caught her eye. In blue stylized script it read ‘Smile begets smile. hello begets hello, life begets life.’

Something about ‘practice what you preach’ sailed secretly, silently, through her mind.

Add a comment

What is your view?

Send

Related posts:

Fault Tolerance with Spring Boot and Hystrix

This will be a very short story covering only the demo for Circuit breaker in microservice applications. I’ll create another story for fundamentals of fault tolerance and detailed analysis of Netfilx…

Why Business Leaders Should Become Analytics Evangelists

Learn how business leaders can leverage data science and analytic tools to extract valuable insights and bridge the gap between data and decision-making.

Political realism

Another major tradition of political thinking rejects the idea that politics exists to deliver a moral or ethical value such as happiness or freedom. Instead, they argue that politics is about power…