Fiction

by Scribe Leaf Library · 1 min read · 0 views

The number 12 was nine minutes late, which was exactly enough time for the woman on the bench to tell the stranger beside her that she'd just left her husband of thirty-one years, and for the stranger to say the only honest thing he had: "I don't know what to say to that." "Nobody does," she said, and seemed relieved by his admission rather than offended. "Everyone else has been saying something." They didn't exchange names. When the bus came, she boarded first, and he stayed on the bench a moment longer, turning over what she'd told a total stranger rather than anyone who knew her — the particular freedom, he supposed, of a person you'll never have to explain yourself to again. He thought about her for the rest of the week, in the specific way you think about people whose whole story you got in nine minutes and will never get the ending to.