The Women

Buying something new has a renewing quality to it. These pants, this shirt, these shoes; they don't know me yet, and I don't know them. It's new, different. Fueled by the frustration of the daily droll, I searched for something new to buy.

I tore up the store looking for something that I told myself that I needed. After a while however, I came to the realization that I really didn't even need any of it, so I digressed and moped around my sister, waiting for her to choose what she wanted to trade some money for. "How about this shirt" she said "what do you think? Is it worth twenty four?" "This shirt, does it look like death?" "Yes. Maybe. No." Her choices were made and we walked toward the cashier.

I wasn't buying anything so I felt I was free to look at those last minute things at the cashier's counter. A box of mints, nail polish, themed bandages; nothing anyone really needed, but something people thought they needed. So I sat looking at these things and I heard a woman ask my sister if that was all she wanted to buy. I looked up to see a woman holding my sister's immaturely wrinkled money in her ring adorned fingers.

You could tell that it had been a long shift because her black hair was beginning to spill from her bun to the sides of her face, as if to wrap it in preparation for sleep. Her v-neck was very low cut and you could just see the faint raise in her chest where her breasts were and a mole that ornamented her collar bones. The shirt was tucked into these black skinny jeans that were wrapped around her fragile legs, revealing the very slight collection of fat that sat atop her abdomen. This made her seem real, attainable, but I knew deep down that she wasn't.

She didn't look at me. I didn't expect her to, or any other woman to for that matter. I thought that all I could hope for was this series of seconds for me to admire her. The trade was made, the bag was filled, and the all too familiar tapping of shoes began again as we left the store.

We went to some other stores afterwards in search of a birthday present for my sister's friend. The last store we went to was abrasive to say the least. Abrasive but warm. These people that shopped here and worked here, you could tell that they confided in each other, that they felt comfortable here. We walk over to a wall of shirts and look for the perfect one for the birthday girl. I looked around to see what other options there were and found something much more enticing. It was her again. She was visiting one of her friends that was working there. It seemed weird to see her outside of the act of taking money, bagging clothes, and giving money. There wasn't that wall of stupid mints and nail polish anymore. I was compelled to say something, to exist.

It would be nice for me to say that I mustered the courage to talk to her and get her name, maybe even more time, but that didn't happen. It never happens, and I can't blame anyone but myself for it.

"I think she'll like this one. I know she will. What do you think?" I say sure. My sister trades more torn money for clothes and we leave for good this time. As we walk back to my car, I beat myself up for not introducing myself, but then I think: what if I had? Would we have had that coffee, or giggled at that joke, or laid awake late into a night talking about nothing that mattered for the sake of hearing each others' voices? No. None of that would have happened, none of that ever happens. Those seconds that came from thin air were all that I could really hope for, and I cherished them as much as I could have. I'm content with that. I'm afraid of being content with that, but the time has past and that is all I can do. Until next time of course.