Shouldn't…but Do

It’s in the jaw. The angle of the chin, the tension of the skin. His suit was expensive, hair perfect grey, tight beltline, shoes without a scuff, newspaper in hand. Clearly here for their appointment, between appointments. He nodded to me when he came in the door.

Expensive jewelry, tailored clothes, no beltline, a weary face behind tasteful cosmetics, shoes without a scuff, expensive purse clutched in hand. About my age, she smiled to me as she settled in next to him, surveying the waiting room of this counseling center, refuge of the walking wounded.

The warmth of the Tuscan-style decor belied the chill in the space between them, a marriage of indifference and desperation. Their quest? For lost unity.

Like the shiny white hearse I passed on my drive in that morning, I dared look no closer. For whatever was there is dead, boxed inside their guts, clothed in rich but empty gesture.

You can only smell these things once you’ve really lived them – been eaten alive. The odor here is thick.

Some people hate advice, sometimes I don’t understand that. I want to tell this woman “run!” I want to tell him “go, go,” but I don’t, it isn’t my affair.

I am there that day in the aftermath of the scene I see before me, on my own quest, for amicable division.

Each person makes their own deal, what can be lived with, what cannot. I am one of the lucky ones, I made it out of the box. My hair is floppy, shoes and backpack scuffed, my cosmetics by what’s-on-sale at the grocery store. But that hearse isn’t circling my block anymore, I’m free.