Allergy

“I suppose it’s three o’clock somewhere,” she says as if reading my thoughts; the clock above, like everything else here, is ugly and forlorn, its bronze, stained hands persisting in a lifeless L.

“Would you like a sandwich?” she whispers.

I look at her, properly now, at this woman seated right next to me: a face as unremarkable as it is old—two small eyes, a pair of thin lips, pale, lined skin, dark hair gracefully graying. She chews (ungracefully) large chunks of crumbling bread. Yet, despite her glaring ordinariness, I can’t help but feel drawn to this woman in some sincere, inexplicable way; something about the scene in front of me—this woman eating that sandwich—compels me to stare. Would I give her another glance if she passed me on the street? Unlikely. And yet, seeing her lost in her sandwich, a thin, crooked line of escaped jam trickling down her featureless chin, I can’t look away.