Just another day

At the end of Friday the 26th of February 2016, I could not remember, at first, how the day started.

Silly me. Nowadays, it's always something like this:

Awake at 1:30 a.m., tea and crossword puzzle. Awake at 5 a.m., bathroom break and water. Awake at 8 a.m., time to wash up and get ready for work.

This morning finished with tea, lunch packing, filling of the cat's water dish and backing the car out of the driveway. On to work.

At my desk, I read the paper, go through email, start my projects for the day.

Today, I had to go Downtown to get blood work done. (Lot of working going on here this day.)

To get Downtown from the North Shore, you take the T one stop Downtown. I get on and hesitate before choosing a seat across from a couple, him and her, each sprawled on a double seat and leaning into each other. Another man occupies the seat in front of Mr. Sprawler. He looks tired. It's a short ride; when I get off Downtown we make brief eye contact, smile and nod. I don't know why, it just seemed to be a polite thing to do.

I climb the steps up to street level and make my way to the Stanwix and Penn intersection and cross with the white walking man sign. A large SUV nearly mows me down in the crosswalk. I make eye contact for a split second with its driver, my almost murderer, then wish for his fiery death. Oblivious, he drives on.

How does that work? Two strangers, two .... reactions? That's not the right word. Weirdly enough, after my lab appointment, I had forgotten the SUV-stranger-whom-I-had-cursed. Took a half an hour, if that.

At the end of Friday, February 26, my best memory is of the smile from the tired man on the T.