She was here (a short story)

Here she was.

I never saw her, but I know.

I stand inside the bus shelter and read the graffiti on its plexiglass walls and wonder about her.

Was she a kindly granny or a hard-faced business-woman? Was she a bubbly teenager or a tired mother with a child in a stroller?

All I know is that she was here.

The plastic seat is still warm where she so recently sat, maybe impressing the faint softness of a skirt or the tough shove of denim jeans.

She was here, for the fresh fragrance of her cigarette still perfumes the air. The wind has not yet scattered the ashes she tapped from it – soft and frail and fleeting upon the concrete. And in the midst of them, crushed out, stepped on, left behind, lies her cigarette, a half-smoked Virginia Slims with a faint, feminine crescent of lipgloss upon the filter.

Here she was, alone or in a crowd, here she sipped sweet smoke and breathed it out again into the morning air – comforting ceremony now scorned by a cowardly new world. I’ve seen the looks the smokers get. I’ve heard the rude and stupid words.

She never knew me nor I her. Had I been here, had I arrived five, ten minutes ago, I would have smiled at her -- gently, pleasantly, a friendly face, neither cursing nor forbidding her exhalations.

I sit where she sat and watch the breeze carry away the bits of ash and wonder what has gone wrong in our world.