The Lady With A Box
The lady with a large box on her lap sits on the chair by the post across the cafe I frequent. She has a smaller box with the cigarettes taken out of their packages all displayed to the streets. She looks like someone who needed rest..
She sits there now with the cigarettes on her lap, their orange filters protrude, the whole bulk looks like a bundle of twigs. Then she puts all of them back to their crumpled paper boxes. Then she taps the box more before I approach her and buy one of the sticks. Tap tap tap. Winds pass, runners blink, people pass us by like in a funeral. I give the lady 2 pesos for a stick. She gives me one stick, being careful not to touch with her fingers, which she knows are dusty and wet. I pick up her lighter. Then I take a long drag and she taps back the box again, and a coin fell and it's dark and she's now looking for that coin, she's now in a search.
I take steps back, the usual way buyers do. And then I see there under the stool she's sitting in- right beside a mat a with a bunch of clothes in it- a locket or a coin. I do not do anything. But I see her, and I see her tight, the lady, who I later learned to be sleeping there in the streets across the cafe I frequent, across the wide spread of street rummaged about by cars. She still sits there searching and then I here a step back sees her look for something I know might already be there.
She sits there now with the cigarettes on her lap, their orange filters protrude, the whole bulk looks like a bundle of twigs. Then she puts all of them back to their crumpled paper boxes. Then she taps the box more before I approach her and buy one of the sticks. Tap tap tap. Winds pass, runners blink, people pass us by like in a funeral. I give the lady 2 pesos for a stick. She gives me one stick, being careful not to touch with her fingers, which she knows are dusty and wet. I pick up her lighter. Then I take a long drag and she taps back the box again, and a coin fell and it's dark and she's now looking for that coin, she's now in a search.
I take steps back, the usual way buyers do. And then I see there under the stool she's sitting in- right beside a mat a with a bunch of clothes in it- a locket or a coin. I do not do anything. But I see her, and I see her tight, the lady, who I later learned to be sleeping there in the streets across the cafe I frequent, across the wide spread of street rummaged about by cars. She still sits there searching and then I here a step back sees her look for something I know might already be there.
Labels: cebu city capitol, Lydia Davis, street vendors
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