Sunday

I was at the coffee shop today, trying to read my book and enjoy some quality “me” time. That might be the first time that the words “quality” and “me” (referring to myself) have been used in a sentence without gales of laughter following it. I was trying to read the “Bourne Dominion” by Eric Van Lustbader which is a very good and exciting read. Eric Van has taken over writing the Bourne books ever since Robert Ludlum died before he finished the saga. Yes, I know, it was pretty inconsiderate. More and more authors are dying off and leaving their particular stories unfinished. I think that a petition demanding that all of these authors must live until I am satisfied that the story has come to a fit and final conclusion is definitely in order.

So, as I said, I was trying to read this exciting book but my attention kept being drawn to the table in front of me. It was obviously a middle aged daughter and her mom and dad. The daughter was going on and on about how she was being mistreated at work, and how other people managed to get away with murder but she was always the one left holding the bag. Kind of like Jason Bourne. The mom was reading the paper and doing a fine job of ignoring her daughter while making the appropriate “uh-huh’s” in the right place as only a mother can do. The dad seemed to be in a coma for the most part. I am sure he wasn’t actually in a coma, because he did turn the pages of the paper from time to time, or was it the wind.

It was obvious that the mom had heard all of this before and couldn’t believe she had raised such a complainer. The daughter blamed “you know what people” for all of the problems that are afflicting our society in general and her in particular. I know what people, the politicians and greedy businessmen. I’m not sure “Red-neck” Rosie would agree with me though. I think that all of the “Rosies” are more to blame than “those people”. Actually, let’s put the blame where it belongs, with Rosie’s mom and dad.

They all went back to reading their respective sections of the paper and since they were boring now, I went back to see how Jason was doing.

I saw a couple today that really tugged at my heart strings. It looked like the wife was injured and the husband was taking care of her. She lay there in obvious pain and he could only look on and try to wish her better. If I had to guess, I would say that she had been hit by a car and from the looks of it there wasn’t much they could do. He would get her water from time to time and I think he was protecting her from whatever she needed protection from. I got the impression that not only was she hurting, but that she was going to die, sooner rather than later. It was hard to tell just how old they were, but any age is too young to die in pain like that.

I kept my distance, because I sensed that my presence would have made them uncomfortable and even more frightened than they were already. I think now that I might have been able to help in some way, but to tell the truth, I was more interested in watching them and how they consoled each other. There was a tenderness that I had rarely seen before and if not the knowledge of imminent death, then certainly the foreshadowing of death. I will watch for this kind of behaviour in the future, and hopefully, I will have my camera with me.

I went back just a little while ago and they were gone. It is more than likely that she died and he took off for places unknown. Magpies are like that