Sparrow

He never was one to pay attention. He wasn’t then, either, when he saw her.

He wasn’t noticing anything at all, just sipping coffee and gazing out the crowded bakery’s front window – maybe at the pavement, maybe just at the feet and legs of the chatting vacationers outside queued-up to the bakery, maybe just at how the perfect Saturday sunshine invited the usual scavenging sparrows – the little brown piafs, as he’d heard they’re called in French – to peck at stepped-on crumbs on the sidewalk amongst all the big feet.

He did notice that in her right hand on a white paper plate she was carrying a naked slice of the little bakery’s pizza. She was blondish. Not old. Not young. Just kina blondish and slight and hunched and alone and in something of a hurry and she had just stepped past all the witness legs and feet and into the street and right there – she dropped it – her slice of pizza – and it landed, just like you’d think, on the pavement – but face down.

He’d done the same thing himself, and seeing the spare, blondish woman, the startle and embarrassment of his own fumble made his face re-flush and burn so hot he glanced quickly around him inside the crowded bakery to see who was amused by his cutting ignominy. He groaned inside.

As I say, the blondish woman’s pizza landed just like you’d think – but face-down.

But like you wouldn’t think, immediately, kind of gasping, the blondish, rather non-descript woman bent over, picked-up her pizza, re-centered it carefully on her white paper plate and kept right on going across the street.

Outside, several of the people in line for pastry, pizza and lattes grinned after her, somewhat shocked.

Probably relevant to say: the blondish woman’s pizza landed not far from the curb, safely eighteen inches from the time-accumulated vehicle lubricants. Her pizza had even more clearance on the Friday-night, big-chunk puke splash that big feet were cleaning mindlessly off the sidewalk and curb right then.

Later, when he thought about the sparse woman, he couldn’t even say what she was wearing. He remembered, though, all the stuff about the road grease and the damp puke and also – maybe it’s not worth mentioning – even further out in the street from her pizza-touch-down than the still-glistening barf – was a traffic-polished, silvery man-hole cover with the scent of subterranean steam leaking out of its little round nostrils – a single man-hole cover worn smooth and featureless and eternal.

Really, I suppose she isn’t even worth mentioning.