Marketplace

Mireille is someone I had only known in passing, we crossed paths now and then along the same stretch of coast, nothing more than nods and small talk before that day. She found me on the low wall by the water, where the salt air sits thick enough to taste, and I was not hiding it. I want to be exact about that, because it mattered: I was not hiding it. Whatever was sitting on me that day was sitting there in plain view, on my face, in how slow my hands moved, in the long pause before I answered anything she asked. I had expected, the way I always expect, that someone would see this and reach for the nearest tool to make it smaller. A joke. A reframe. A quick practical suggestion, kindly meant, that would have required me to set the thing down before I was done holding it.