Excerpt from a short story.
Digging through an orange purse and coat pockets, Jane’s ungloved hands shook: no coins, wind picking up, belly precociously kicking. She was unprepared for all three. Snowflakes stung her right cheek, and her butt was numb sitting on a frozen bench under a bus stop sign. She knocked her frost-bit knuckles together to flint heat. Before the cross-town bus arrived, she needed to make change for a dollar. There was light from a market across the street. Jane breathed in and tipped forward. She trekked across the street against a gale of snow; mismatched boots spread far apart, and arms balanced against the wind. From under her hood a clump of matted hair slipped out, entangled with glass shards which glinted as she approached the market.
Mrs. Chathoum watched from the picture window, praying the creature wouldn’t come towards Great Northern, and switched off the exterior lamps. As Jane neared, Mrs. Chathoum narrated with increasing alarm:
“No, no, no, closed; no one home, no one home; no cross the street; no goddamn bus charity!”
Jane entered, stamping her boots. Mrs. Chathoum stepped up to the counter, patted her aerosol helmet, and rubbed rouge into her temples.
“No purchase, no change!” She squawked to the unwelcomed customer.
Jane leaned into the inviting warmth, but the brusque greeting repelled. Turning around to leave, her puffed, purpled, bloodied cheekbone and distended belly were revealed in profile. Mrs. Chathoum clutched at the bifocals hanging on a chain over her breasts. She motioned reconsideration too late. Jane’s skating backside disappeared into the dark tumult. She could not see the diminutive shopkeeper holding the door open against the blizzard nor hear her desperate calls to return.
Reseated on the icy bench, Jane strained to locate bus headlights in the distance through the snowfall—nothing, nothing ahead. Compartmented walls crumbled apart, and a hidden chord forced its way up her throat and boomed into the universe. Raising her head in a celestial appeal, she met a creviced face looking down from a perch on the eves of a building. His friendly and wise eyes fought off icicles forming on lashes. The figure removed his scarf and gloves and lowered them in a pail via a rope and pulley. The offering stuck midway. He knocked his head against the wall to gain attention. A woman swung open a thick wood door to his side and covered her head with a shawl against the disturbance rushing in.