Tuesday 9/10/24
Good chance "Expect Delays" is finished today or tomorrow. Also a good chance it will be in The Ghost Grew Legs: Stories of the Dead for the More or Less Living. Or How to Scare a Ghost: People Stories.
If I was Anton Chekhov and I read this story, I'd say, "That's it, I'm done, I stand down, not going to be able to compete with that, I'm out, fucking hell, brother, time to get back to doctoring."
***
The woman behind him offered a correction that seemed to physically pass right over the man by dint of her being a head taller and the added emphasis that came with having determined that this was one of those times she had to say something.
“It was a woman with her baby,” she said, her voice less neutral and like it might be a while before she was able to talk again.
“I heard it was a homeless lady,” volunteered a college-aged kid gnawing on some form of tubular breakfast concoction dense with meat, the backpack at his feet crowned by badges proclaiming his most important beliefs in the least amount of words for those who read bags.
A breeze ran up out of nowhere—the sort of breeze that feels like the first in hours and might be the last for days. Heads raised so that their owners would be less likely to miss its full effect.
“Feels good,” a woman suggested to her husband who hated having to talk when it wasn’t necessary.
The breeze reminded her of their quiet walks at dusk on the beach during their vacation when it had never been quite the right time to discuss children again. Seemed impossible to believe it was only a week ago. Summer struck her as longer than she’d ever known. You had more time than you thought. Then again, you had more time than you thought.
The student swallowed the last of whatever he was eating. This was his first summer away from home. He’d been looking forward to meeting some friends for a hike. Hopefully those guys would wait so he wouldn’t have made the trip to East Bumblefuck for nothing, if he finally even got there.
A girl began to cry. She cried loudly, but no one could see or hear her or the woman who had lifted the girl up without any strain, light little thing that she was.
“Momma’s here,” said her mother, rocking the child she had unburdened of all that was to come. “Shhhh. It’s okay now. Shhhh.”
Soon the self-selected spokesman was sweating again, as if he could only stay dry for so long even while standing in place.
The college kid was drinking some purple-colored beverage he’d gotten from his bag while reading another text on his phone and grinning.
“This world,” someone opined.
“Amen,” added a grandmother—one of those spry grandmothers.
“Imagine doing that to your kid,” lamented the woman who felt like she hadn’t had a vacation in years, while the woman who’d corrected the unofficial spokesperson swallowed once more as she thought about the son she lost and if the years he’d had would have been deemed worth it to him.
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