Us

The fruit boys move among the aisles, larynx and bodies in perpetual motion; spruiking their goods, they laugh in embarrassment as they encounter those who don’t speak Putonghua*. Out front, a pint-sized mongrel insouciantly cocks its leg on a plastic pallet full of rotten fruit. A pretty young man bounces by in a sparkling top; as the bass line gets seriously wobbly on the long, long mix of “Born To Be Alive”. Across a few freeways and a creek the size of a river, herons settle into the lengthening evening. They’re a flapping, rarely noisy, elegance in trees that drink from polluted waters. A girly girl, femininity as natural for her as flight for the bird, wears denim overalls. Slender and tall, she towers over me; mimicking the way her future dwarfs mine. An anxious time may be ebbing away: along with the brief, cold, well-companioned winter.

*Pinyin for Mandarin (Or The Common Language.)