Free Lunch

Photo by Jan Huber on Unsplash

Today I imagined a pretty woman on an early autumn day, sitting on a short cobblestone wall in a slightly busy market square next to a park. She wore a white blouse under a thin sweater with sleeves that didn’t quite meet her wrist, and leggings that gracefully matched her skirt at the knee. She tipped her brown shoes up and crossed her feet, swinging them easily without touching the ground. The soft sunny wind that made her brush the hair from her face, raised her head from her phone to a slight smile, then back.

It must have been the lavender wands and the grass clipped for the last time of the season, mixed with a flower’s scent I’ve never known that brought her to smile at that breeze I met just after. I gathered my finished lunch, stood and walked slowly near and said hello as I smiled on my way back to work.