Deer ... in the headlights.....

The voice I heard on iTunes, was beautiful.   A professional.  The control, the tonal quality (although it was a "mastered" recording) was crystal clear.  She sang softly with passion, making it easy for me to believe what she believed.  The passion, prompted the audience, to sing along and be her back-up vocals, they were for a moment and forever a community of one voice.  The way it was always meant to be.  With passion.  I want to approach my passion as a professional, that is - daily.  Each day I need a community - all the different directions I am pulled; work, father, husband, lover, cook, best friend, dog-walker, hobbyist to come together behind the writer in me and together spread words all over the page till they are all spent.  They need to bring the things they see and taste and experience find a valid place in my writing.  The story can weave it 's way though to the reader and move the reader, or not.  I would be disappointed in my self if someone reading any of my writing - after reading would stare at the computer like a deer in the headlights of an oncoming car, unmoved, unable to break the trance.  So on that note....

I was crossing the road, after dark. My dog pulled to get off the 5 lanes of asphalt on to the grass.  The sweet smelling grass on the far side.  I stopped in the middle, the suicide lane, they call it.  Waiting for traffic to pass and make it safe to cross.  I looked down at my feet, my breath visible and being torn away from me by the speed and numbers of the cars, trucks and vehicles going by, oblivious that there was a man and his dog, right outside their windows, standing still.  I looked down at the asphalt and seeing my dog, unsure, what to do except keep an eye on traffic now going both ways; north and south past us; a metal and plastic and rubber stream, whipping up the wind.  I was still looking down when I noticed a familiar soft flower, moving across the hard ground, still looking soft while losing a few petals. The vehicle draft, carried and tumbled the rose, the pink rose in my direction.

I stood transfixed as this pretty blossom tumbled toward me, again scattering a few petals; to the winds of traffic, hoping to appease the uncontrollable current of streaming traffic.  I bent to pick it up.  I rescued it. The traffic had all passed. I looked to the west and up and down that side of the road and saw no one.  I turned around to face east and saw a female on the side of the road where I had just been moments ago.  She was looking at me as I was looking at her.  No, wait she was looking at the rose in my hand. She did not move. She did not speak. She just stared.  She stepped out into the road, to walk in my direction, she stopped in the middle as she knew, she would not make it to the middle or back to the curb unless she hurried, she turned and dropped her soft knitted pink gloves to the ground like petals of the rose I shielded from the next flight of cars and trucks.  They ignored both my dog and I and the woman on the side of the road I had just come from. She stood transfixed, staring into the headlights.

So much so she did not notice me standing with my dog beside her on the sidewalk, until the traffic had passed. I handed her the pink gloves, she looked at my hands and not my face.  She saw the rose as she accepted the gloves. She looked down at the dog with out reaching to pet her. There was no eye contact, there was a sound that made me think she said "thank you." She stuffed the gloves into the pocket of her jacket.  Her dirty toque was plopped on her head.  She held out her hand.

I said, "Is this rose yours?"  She opened her hand to accept it.  I said "watch out for the thorns". I heard a sound from her that was lost in the next wave traffic that washed the night air over us.  She firmly grasped the rose and stem, ignoring the thorns or what I said.  She did not look at me, but past me to a man watching, waiting further up the sidewalk.  It was only then did I notice the few blood droplets splashing to the walkway below.  I looked up in time to see catch her eyes staring into mine.  It was a vacant stare, yet there was a hardness to it and more, but what?  In that moment everything froze, and I stood staring like a deer in the headlights - of her stare and then it was gone as she brushed past me, to go to the man, on the sidewalk in front of the motel.  The sign flashed the time, the temperature and vacancy. 

As they turned into the driveway, he had a firm grip on her elbow and she turned her head in my direction,
I recognized there was another rose, needing rescuing.  I stared after them, once they were out of sight, I turned to cross the road, to the sweet grass that waited for my dog.  There was no traffic, I do not know how long I stood there.  The dog was now sitting looking up at me, hoping to go.  We went, across the 5 lanes of asphalt, I was only able to rescue 1 rose that night, as for the other one, I hoped that she had more life in her and would not wilt, or dry out or cross the road without looking both ways.  I could sense that there were more dangerous things in her life then crossing roads with out looking both ways.

I knew that shortly I would have to go back across the boulevard.  I would go home to a warm place. I could not help but see her face every time I closed my eyes.  I felt I had let her down, I had saved only one rose.  My dog pulled on the leash, as we crossed the road, reaching the sidewalk.  I turned to go away from the motel, toward my home, a bed warmly waiting.  The dog stopped me in my tracks, as she pulled toward the motel, it was her turn to rescue a rose, she was a girl dog after-all, pink leash taut as she shouldered into the direction... dragging me to where the thorns drew blood, and the sign flashed vacancy.  What was I to do..... now.