Walking along the path, watching the people as they pass, casual and easy. Here to there, this Smithsonian building to that monument, brick and pillar, marble and stone; snapshots, exhibits, seals and signets; spaghetti straps, short blue jeans shorts, baseball caps, ponytail, walking shoes; flitting eye contact, choreographed in the unconscious; careful lack of eye contact, consciously maintained. Jordan taps my arm lightly; I raise my eyebrow and tip my chin towards him to acknowledge him. Without touching his head, he says, “Red and blue at two o’clock,” out of the side of his mouth. My eyes scan to the right and lock onto the object of his description. “Got it,” I say, ending the dialog. The object, albeit interesting, is soon retired from my scrutiny, and my eyes resume the task of scanning back and forth across the path. Falling into vision is a man of average height in late middle age, graying straw blond hair, portly but not ungainly. His eyes flit about alertly. I shut my eyes and keep walking mechanically. Like a bullet, I fly into his mind, just to watch:
‘Scratch my head. Scan the crowd. Where is she? She should have been here ten minutes ago! Hey, look at that guy, young, walking with his eyes shut. And his companion, staring at every girl that passes him, and they at he as he passes! I remember when I was young; all the girls looked at me that way. Walking down the street, I could feel their eyes on me. No longer, now I sit here and no one gives me more than a glance, never a thought. I wonder what that guy with his eyes shut is thinking. Does he know what he has? How soon it will be gone? How can he? How can anyone really understand the experience of another? No one can feel what I know until they know it themselves.’
I flutter back into myself and open my eyes. I smile, thinking of what that man though. He was both right and wrong; what is true about himself is not necessarily true for all. Some of us grow butterflies in our minds.
Something very solid crosses my path, pulling me back into the realm of tangible things. I can feel Jordan’s mind screaming “Ass alert! Ass alert!” As he turns to tap my shoulder, he sees me looking at him with a smirk, letting him know that he doesn’t need to whisper in my ear, “Blue moon, twelve o’clock.”
