Luck

character description

Luck

 

         Two younger men sit, leaning forward across from each other, backs straight in the population of the vehicle. They sit across from each other, eager on the blue seats, lit in the same jovial hue by the tinted windows of the city bus. They cruelly match each others’ eyes, offering one or two words per sentence of meaning, each searching the world for some opportunity. They scrape up dignity in poor times and continue the fight for happiness that arises in a poor world. They have not yet surrendered.

         Humanity is repeated at the bus stop they will pass, where a black woman in saggy black clothing with a black knit cap and a younger white man in jeans and leather, the tough clothing of poverty reality, wait on the long transport. The menja vu of repeated experience arises as each seems to mend the separate distance, to double when the black woman asks the man a question. The bus slows to a stop, and either one stands straight acknowledging themselves worthy of the ride. They step into the machine to join the party of passengers, sharing in the odd celebration of public transportation. The bus stops again to match the pace of single feet for a moment and then disappears.

         The double nature of persons halve, and there is only a middle aged man left who stands on the cement porch of an apartment building. He appears younger than his years. He wears a sweatshirt and loose jeans like the woman or her younger companion. He wears the clothing of the poor which seems unimportant in poor times. His upturned eyebrows seem to reveal an unknowing pride that has wrestled out dignity within himself. He is worthy to the open air as are the passengers who have boarded the bus. He steps onto the street amid a happy party of good spirits. He finds the anticipation of a destination only part of the subtler joys that appear in odd corners of the street and its dimensions of trees and skies.