between the lines, or outside them entirely

Snippets of the unsaid, and the silences that speak volumes:


Every day, I see him at the public library: using the same computer terminal, the same black duffel bag lying on the floor next to his chair. His hair is thick and curly, almost wild; his clothes show signs of age but are still cared for, and he keeps them as neat as discarded clothing can be. Through the thick squares of his brown plastic glasses, he stays perfectly focused on the screen as he types, frantically pounding each key in succession.

As he hunches over the keyboard, I notice, yet again, the pre-printed message on the back of his lime green t-shirt, the same one he's been wearing for weeks: “I’m the son of rage and love.”

*******************

“I can’t believe you’re having this conversation from the supermarket,” the woman at the laundromat yells into her cell phone over the roar of the dryers. “Can you even concentrate on what you’re buying?”

*******************

“How are you doing today?” the telemarketer asks as I pick up the phone.
“Fine, but I don’t really want to talk to you.”
Long pause.
“Oh…well…uh…I’m calling you today because…,” he restarts the pitch, his tone tentative at first, then gradually building toward smug.
“Really. I’m not interested.”
Click.
"But..."
I shrug as I put the phone back in its cradle: does anyone actually want an honest answer?

*******************

“Any spouse or dependents?” the bank rep asks as part of setting up my new Health Savings Account.
“No”
“That’s why you’re so cheery.”

*******************

“I get lots of suggestions: footholds, pictures on the ceiling.”
“Pictures on the ceiling?”
The gynecologist nods. “One woman thought we should have pictures of guys being tortured on the ceiling so she could look at them during her exam.”

*******************

“So you see,” my friend tells me as she evokes the grandest spirit of the recent holiday season, “that’s why lots of women want to marry men from orphanages.”