All Eyes On Me
All that was is not as it is and it confuses her. What has been for her an easy thing — most things — is not anymore. Getting out of the car is suddenly not the fluid single motion it once was: jump out, slam the door, strut down the carpark, all eyes on her for the right reasons. She discovers, very soon, that disability of the leg is also disability of the hand, because what do you do when your hands are busy with crutches helping your legs walk? What do you do when you’re striking out across a busy street in oncoming traffic and your glasses start falling down your face?
Sitting at the kitchen table, she looks out the window and sees the old man working in the garden and is hit with instant guilt that she, who is so much younger than him, is not fulfilling her destiny by doing these things for him. She spends what energy she has on getting rid of things she cannot use any more. It is like clearing out a house after someone has died. But it is her things. Her failing body.
On a Sunday mid-morning, she drives to the library. On the way, she passes a usually empty parking lot outside a mall — today it is filled with a vast ocean of black-clad Hells Angels on their bikes, packed close, some revving their engines, some off their bikes and standing drinking coffee together. It looks like a nesting ground for large, dark seafaring birds. There is a police car parked in their midst, a friendly…
