2 strangers:

a collision of waves through time

Being with him was like pressing my ear to the inside of a shell. In that instant, I was transported. Elsewhere.

“Look at the light through the trees,” he said.

⥺

I felt her presence behind me as I was crouched digging through sheets at HomeGoods. I felt her hovering. I knew she was going to say something. I assumed because I was in her way. But, I didn’t care. I was on a mission for baby blue queen size sheets.

“Do you think these pillows match this comforter?”, her voice squeaked.

I looked up to meet the eyes of an older middle-aged woman. White, with dark brown thick, yet wiry hair. She wore a chic, tidy knee-length black dress. A perplexity filled her eyes. A timid ferocity.

The pillows were a slightly lighter shade of a grey-ish blue. The comforter was darker.

“Do you think these still match even though the colors are off?”

I looked and tried to honestly think of what I thought. I wasn’t the best at interior design, so I followed my instinct and said,

“Yes. I like it. I think the lightness of the pillows brings more life to the comforter.”

And in that moment, as she told me she was buying these for a friend, she began to open herself to me. She began telling me about how her friend was going through a divorce and was now living on her own in an apartment, for the first time in a very long time. And how she wanted to make her friend feel better by helping her arrange a beautiful new bed.

So, this question of the pillows was important, you know? This would decide the fate of her friend.

“It happens,” she said “One day, the person you’re with just changes.”

⥺

He was beautiful. He was golden. He was tall in the right way. When he spoke a thick accent flowed from his lips. Sun-stroked golden brown hair crested his shoulders, pulled back in a ponytail. He was so beautiful it was like a song.