The summer is late now and I walk in the stifling heat, head lowered against the sun’s strong glare, counting the colored shards of glass along the sidewalks as I go. Green, brown, orange and blue, like pieces of fallen sky beneath my feet. Broken dreams lost in the previous night emerging in the light; glinting back at me with their jagged edges. Somehow they still seem to sparkle though.

My weekend was filled with finite life; hopes unraveled and fears unfolded.
I watch my own as they file, one by one, past me in that self-inflicted processional march staring into the ground as if searching for direction in the dirt. The rain falls quietly into my hair, while they touch their hands, their cheeks, they stare.
I can’t help but wonder if tears are the glue that hold humanity together.

He fidgets through the door, his blue shirt the color of a dirty robin’s egg, buttoned up to his throat and tucked gingerly into his pressed blue jeans and high-waisted belt. He is no bigger than my seventy-nine year old mother.
“Are you looking for something in particular?” Reni asks.
“Born Free, “he answers, hurriedly and softly.
Reni’s eyes look at us searchingly. “I don’t know it,” she says.
Selma and I immediately break into song… “Born Free, as free as the wind blows…” as we send Reni off to a forgotten shelf in the back of the store.
“Would you like a coffee?” I suggest, as we wait for her return.
His translucent white hair sits atop his pale, soft face; the watery blue eyes dart here and there as he answers, “Yes please, with a lid.”
He waits quietly while Reni wraps the book. He carefully takes the coffee and the book and walks out the door.
None of us can keep ourselves from practically running to the window to watch him as he makes his way off the porch and down the long walk. Her eyes widen with anticipation as he walks toward her with the book. We all watch silently as she tears its wrapper off, her long dark hair mingling with the bright red scarf as it blows in the wind. I can’t help but think of one of Ian Fleming’s Bond girls driving in her sports car at high speeds, through the curvy mountain roads. He hands her the coffee. She immediately takes the lid off and throws it on the ground.
He quickly picks it up, puts it in his pocket and grabs the padded black handles of the chair and begins to push with all his might. Off they go; I hear Selma singing under her breath, “Live Free…”

Author’s Note:
Born Free, written in 1960, by Joy Adamson; was made into a film in 1966; song lyrics written by John Barry.

Lyrics:

Born free, as free as the wind blows
As free as the grass grows
Born free to follow your heart

Live free and beauty surrounds you
The world still astounds you
Each time you look at a star

Stay free, where no walls divide you
You’re free as the roaring tide
So there’s no need to hide

Born free, and life is worth living
But only worth living
‘Cause you’re born free

They practically stumble through the door, fumbling to make sure they look “together,” a new couple trying to look older and experienced in their love, not like the older couples that come in trying to find their way back to that young love again. Their fingers lace in and out, they ask each other’s opinions and one always agrees with the other. They wander idly along the maze of shelves, in and out, roaming eyes skipping and gliding over the titles, always peeping and glancing their way back towards each other. Their language is all in future tense; but they don’t yet realize that they are their future, in one way or another.