Your life has quickly become a long string of anonymous encounters even less fulfilling than the one at the bookstore. A trip to the grocery to buy coffee and bagels for the next morning's hangover is a flourescent-lit journey through other people's lives, like watching a documentary about the commercial rituals of the American family, shot through your eyes and soundtracked by easy listening music, peppered this time of year with Harry Connick and Barry Manilow Christmas songs.
You wonder if you are visible at all to anyone else as you make your way among the aisles.
You have been here before, and thought these times were over, but they were not. Here you are again, ringing up your purchase at the self-checkout to avoid having to talk to anyone, knowing that being ignored by the teenage checkout girl would be worse than not being noticed by anyone, and worse still is the possibility that she might call you "sir".
A light snow is falling in the dark as you carry your bags to the car. You pull your hood up over your head to keep the snow out, and watch your breath appear in front of you and then dissappear into nothingness. Maybe you wonder what would happen if you forgot to keep breathing. Maybe you wonder how much snow would pile up on your cooling body as it lay crumpled in the parking lot, how long it would be before someone noticed.
As you make your way to your parking spot you notice a teenage couple having an argument. They are standing face to face by the open door of a car, the interior light casting a pale glow across their legs, catching snowflakes as they meander past on their way to the ground. His voice is loud and angry, punctuated by bursting jabs of a finger directed towards her chest. She is sobbing, metallic drops of salty water streaming down her cheeks, shivering in the cold, arms wrapped around her bare shoulders. There must be a story here about why they are fighting in the grocery parking lot, about why she's wearing a tank top instead of a coat in a snow storm, but it's a story you don't want to know.
You've been burned and mistreated by enough women not to immediately assume that she did nothing wrong, which you may have done in the past. You've been through enough woman-trouble first hand to know that while it's never pretty, it's naive to say that a woman never deserves to get yelled at. You hunch into your coat and shiver off the cold and try to make your way to your car. Try to mind your own business.
As you pass them, perpetually invisible, he hits her. Out of the corner of your eye you see him pull back a closed fist and take a swing at her face. In your periphery you see her head jerk back, you see a spray of blood fly from her nose, glistening brightly in the dim light cast from inside the car as it races the snow to the ground, you see her unwrap her hands from her shoulders and cover her face as she falls to her knees. You hear the word "whore" come out of his mouth in slow motion as you see him follow through his punch from the corner of your eyes.
Maybe you've known women to do things and deserve to get hit for those things they did. Maybe you know what it's like to have your heart cut out of your chest by the fairer sex while it's still beating, and maybe you know that your first reaction when that happened was to hurt back, to hit back, to start swinging. Maybe you know that there's still some genetic remants from caveman times that cause men to want to drag women back to the cave by their hair when they misbehave. Maybe you know that women have similar programming that causes them to do these things in order to get a man to drag them by their hair.
How else will they know they are truly loved otherwise?
Deep down inside, however, you also know for sure that's a bridge that you'd never cross. In your soul, you can't abide by that kind of violence. It's one thing to pick a fight, it's entirely different to get physical with someone who can't possibly defend themselves against you.
You drop your bags. You realize that you're no longer going to be invisible. Maybe you know that words can stop violence from happening in the first place, but you also know that once that particular stray cat is out of the proverbial bag, there's no going back. For sure you know that trying to negotiate a situation once the violence has started just puts you at a disadvantage.
Before you know what's going on, he's on the ground holding his face, blood pouring through his fingers. Your knuckles hurt. Maybe they're even bleeding. He's not moving, maybe he's in shock from being unexpectedly hit. You figure you've got a minute or so before the adrenaline kicks in and masks his pain and suprise and he gets pissed. At you.
You turn your back to him and kneel over her, cradling her head and tipping it back with your hands over hers to stop the blood from flowing out of her nose. She's so young, so beautiful in the light cast from the driver's door of their car, even with the blood. The car is running, the driver door bell is dinging, and the radio is playing soft enough so you couldn't hear it before.
Maybe you are about to ask her if this is her car. Maybe you are about to suggest that she get into it and drive away before he gets up. Before you have the chance though, she looks up at you and you see pain and love and sadness in her eyes. No appreciation though. Before you have the chance, she smacks you across the face with a bloody hand and pushes you away.
You manage to stand up and look down at the two of them. She falls forward onto him and is cradling his head in her arms, both of them bleeding from their noses, blood mixing, and they hold each other, touching foreheads.
It would be beautiful and romantic and touching, what with the snow falling on them and all. It would be a scene from a Lifetime movie, except for the blood. And except for the sting on your cheek from her hand. Except for the fact that you are there at all.
You walk back to your bags, a light covering of snow resting on the handles. Groceries cool much faster than a human body. You walk to your car and drive home in silence, and you don't look back.
