PonderEthereal

I sipped my coffee. Ethan whirled into the room, giggling, followed in seconds by a playful dog and out the other side they whirled again.

It was still drizzling outside. Every now and then the wind would whip through the tree tops and the chimes outside the window would sound. I shivered and wrapped my hands closer around the hot mug, glancing at the stove. The muffins were almost done. My stomach growled in response.

And then I saw her. I wasn’t quite sure what I saw at first. I reached forward across the table, with my sweater pulled over my hand and wiped at the fog on the window. Yes… there she was. Dark hair, mussed, draped in shabby clothing that looked gray with dust. But despite the dust or the drizzle outside, she held herself as thought she were taking a stroll in the sunshine down m tree lined street. Like a queen.

She stopped when she got to the walk leading from the street to the front door. She studied it carefully, without looking up, turning her body around it this way and then that, muttering something under her breath. As if deciding if this place on the sidewalk were exactly what she was looking for.

Apparently convinced that it was, she plunked down on the sidewalk with her face towards me, her back to the world and she pulled something from her pocket. I watched her face as she fumbled with whatever she grasped. Streaks from the trek of tears from the corner of both eyes to her chin, broke the fine layer of dust. Her face held the scowl of someone who wiped the tears away and became angry instead.

And here she perched, fumbling and mumbling on the path leading up to my home. Only aware of the one corner of world that she’d claimed, which may have seemed like the whole of a world, being the only point she appeared to have noticed. In the rain. In the cold. Such a contrast, I thought to myself and I took a sip of my coffee, thoughtfully intrigued by this huddled, angry figure at the corner of my world.

Finally, I realized that what she had been fumbling with was a pack of cards. Which, at this point, she had managed to pull from the box and was carefully shuffling them. She began to very carefully lay them out. Now and again, she would glance around protectively as if expecting someone to notice and rush to stop her. But no one did and she continued to build.

In this breeze, in this rain, low and behold, she was building a house of cards. And one by one, she painstakingly began to build it up. Every now and then she would stop to shake a fist at some unseen force before she carefully placed the next card with a very, very satisfied look.

Sitting here, warm and comfortable, it was hard not to feel pity for her. She was so obviously deeply affected by something both saddening and angering to her. The house of cards was a few stories high now, built with grumbles and angry gestures and lots of words. Whoever lived in that house of cards must be someone she hates, I mused.

She stood up from where she sat. I almost couldn’t see her so I leaned forward to wipe the glass clean again. Yes. She stood there glowering down at the house of cards. This meticulous creation of her own tears and anger. I wondered how one person could be so angry and so sad in their own world and at her resolute aversion to looking up from her place on my sidewalk.

I wondered, as she fiddled with her house of cards some more, what it would be like if she stood up, dusted herself off, smiled and walked confidently to my door. I would open it and see her and maybe invite her in out of the rain for a cup of coffee. I wondered what the conversation would be like. If she’d stepped outside her anger and tears.

She was stooped down in front of the house of cards again. This time she seemed to have a string that was somehow tied or attached to one of the cards. She held one end and waggled the string gently enough to not disturb the card. Then she lifted her face and howled in laughter. She dropped the string and walked around the house again, still not looking up. Then she did look up - as if to look right at me… but still without seeming to see anything further than a few feet in front of her. And then she bent down and yanked the string.

There was a moment in which she seemed to watch the cards fall in slow motion like a perfectly orchestrated calamity. She wheeled around in a circle and pulled her fists in under her chin with a look of childish glee and gazed down at the pile of cards. And then… she was gone. Watching her awkward saunter away up the sidewalk was overshadowed by the bizarre nature of what I had just witnessed and it was almost as if she had never been there. Save for the pile of cards on sidewalk in front of my home.

Ethan careened through the room again, laughing, with a panting dog quick on his heels. I was pulled back into reality, quickly downing the last few gulps of my cooling coffee and standing up to do the dishes.