The Motions

I keep going through the motions. What would he say?

I found that written in a yellow paper notebook I brought with me on the bus this morning. It has no context around it. It came after the first draft of "She's Having a Baby", which I wrote in June, so I set it down recently. But I don't know what I meant. What motions? Who is he?

It sounds like the opening for a story. About a woman whose husband has died, perhaps. But that's a little too prosaic, isn't it?

And I meant something else when I wrote it, I'm sure.

But I don't know what.

Elvira Hair

I caught Paper-reading Lady's bus this morning.

There were five unfamiliar young men at the stop, sitting in a row on the bench beneath the bus shelter. For the first time, I saw Smoking Man -- who has always before been sitting on the shelter bench, smoking -- standing. He had a brown paper lunch bag in his hand, and he wasn't smoking.

Neither Postman nor BK Worker were there.
( But I took the bus anyway )