Wednesday, August 28, 2002

vignette She sat with her

vignette

She sat with her arm in the clumsy black cuff, slumping sullenly in the contours of the molded plastic chair in the pharmacy aisle of the overgrown grocery store.  Her legs, giftwrapped in black jeans, extended before her; a ribbed cotton top, red and white, clung to her barely ripening torso.  Her face was the picture of boredom and frustration as her eyes rested on the screen to the side on which her blood pressure was to be displayed.  Three and one-half inches from her sagging shoulder bristled the broad gut of her father.  He wore a dark grey collared knit shirt, and black slacks, and black shiny shoes with broad shiny silver buckles.  His arms were well-muscled, though seemed spindly next to the bloat over his beltline.  His hands clutched his hips in a posture both confrontational and isometric.  His hair was wispy and thinning; his goatee was trimmed very short and pencil-thin; his eyes too were fixed on the readout screen.

They co-existed in the bright neon aisle: he, willing his beloved daughter to be healthy, fecund, loyal, grateful, happy - extending the strength of his character psychically, while forgetting that his abdomen loomed within a beetlebreath of her delicate form, nearly eclipsing her delicacy, seemingly on the verge of crushing her; she, grateful for the chance to sit quietly, trying to distract herself, trying to ignore her father’s nasal exhalations as they rained down over her head, determined to take advantage of each precious opportunity to be left alone - even from a two-bit diagnostic jukebox - even here in the pharmacy aisle - even if only in her mind…