Up and down the footpath by the bus stop the little girl runs.
A grey and wiry gent sits slightly shabby on the bench adjacent to mine, absorbed in his phone, dabbing and swiping with unsteady fingers. It’s a coarse stereotype that only the young are distracted by technology. He should be watching his granddaughter who is playing a step from the busy roadway. I am definitely watching him. We will meet in a moment, precisely at 2 o’clock, which by a coincidence neither here nor there is the time the bus is scheduled to arrive.
This is probably why I didn’t notice that the girl had stopped her play and was now climbing up onto the bench beside me. I turn and her green eyes meet my hollow pits, making me flinch, something I haven’t done in nearly a century. But then, I consider, awareness does sometimes happen. Slippage.
She looks at me and I look at her and she says, “Are you a stranger?”
I’m about to answer with a truthful I’m a constant companion, but she’s four and won’t understand. Besides, it sounds pompous, so I just say, “Yes.”
“Are you a bad one?”
I almost chuckle at that ancient question coming from one so young, aware she did not ask it in its traditional sense. “No I’m not,” I tell her. Clearly she’s been warned against strangers because some of them are indeed bad. As well I know.
It’s then that a car mounts the curb where the girl had been playing a moment before, a minor and unregarded traffic incident. Across from me her grandfather is still nose-down in his phone and has certainly not noticed. I frown at his inattention, then smile at the irony. If she had not stepped across to question me when she did…there would’ve been hell to pay. Literally.
Apparently satisfied with my credentials as A Stranger But Not A Bad One, she climbs off the seat and once more chases up and down the footpath now marked with fresh tyre marks.
It is time. I step to that other bench to stand beside the old man, and I see what has so engaged his concentration on his phone—a photo gallery of faces, all of them people I have met before. Because of this I understand but do not forgive his irresponsibility.
He senses my presence and squints up a long moment before mouthing You in recognition. He glances across at the girl still racing about too close to the road. “What about Emma…”
“Luckily I am to your granddaughter still a stranger.” I hold out my hand.
The bus pulls in a minute later. It’s the driver who calls the ambulance and it is she too who holds the child, upset and very confused, and whispers consoling words till help arrives.
Rick is a kind and gentle soul who enjoys strolls through graveyards and who writes stories of madness, mayhem, and wars with hideous caterpillar aliens. His most recent publication on Amazon is The Crooked Rook, a collection of 21 short stories and flash fictions, some of which even Rick finds disturbing.
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