Heartbreaking

Sometimes you experience things so shocking that upon their happening, you are left in a mental state of shock. You are unable to reshift your focus to those assignments due on Tuesday and too shaken to call your girlfriend at the time she told you to call her. You get caught in resounding cycle of replaying that experience second by second, dissecting and then analyzing each detail in order to obtain clarification, hoping for relief that what you just witnessed wasn't it; that it was something else thats not so bad as what you had initially percieved. However, this festering never leads to those results. In fact it does just the opposite, it festers in your brain until that mystery, that experience is a big gapping hole, a blemish that can’t be covered up with a layer of encyclopedic information, or mindless TV shows

Of course you are probably wondering what I am talking about.

Tonight, I was taking a break from doing my homework, and went to go hang out with some friends who live by the U. Once I got there, we didn’t have much to do, so we went on a bike ride. As we were going up fourth I decided to stop at brooklyn’s pizza and get some free water. They didn’t want any, so they sat on those flimsy metal chairs just outside the store and I went in and stood in line.

Well once I got in line I saw one of my friends sitting at a table (which was right by the end of the line) so conviently, I got in line and started to have a small conversation with him. As we were talking, the line started to move forward and I was kicked out of line and instantly cut by some guy with a walker, some lady, and a little girl in maybe kindergarden. Well when these people went in front of me, the guy with the walker looked at me; since I was engaged in a conversation, I interpretted the glance as a way of asking without interupting my conversation, if I was in line or not. I was still talking to my friend, so I motioned them to go in front of me. Then when the guy was moving forward, I noticed he was still discreetly looking at me.

As always, the line was moving slowly and I was beginning to zone out. I had told the friend that I was talking to that my other two friends were outside, so he went out there to talk to them. My eyes were wondering around the room for a while when my focus landed on the TV mounted on the wall that has a slide show playing about how ecologically effiencent solar power is. Out of my periferalls, I could see the guy with the walker lean over, and when he leaned back up, he quickly glanced backwards at me, then stood up again.

He wasn’t an old guy, probably from what I saw, mid to late forties. His body was frail, and through his baggy clothes you could tell that he was incredibly skinny. And every now and again he would take his hands off the walker, as though the walker was nuscience, but everytime, after about ten to fifteen seconds, his wobbly, crooked stance couldn’t support him, so he had to quickly grasp the walker again.

I then noticed that my attention was fully diverted on to him. When I saw him glance at me with my peripherals, I caught a good glipse at his face.

…to be continued tomorrow. The ending is good, kind of heart breaking.