She sits on the cold metal chair, her feet just barely touching the cement covered ground. Her light shoes and slight feet barely move from their place under the round table that seems to match the chair perfectly. Strands of her longish brown hair fall in her face every few minutes only to be swiped away by her thin cold fingers.

The cold coffee that had been sitting in front of her now for over half an hour was only sipped once, then forgotten.




People walk by her, not even noticing her brownish green eyes jumping from face to face, person to person. Watching, analyzing, but not criticizing, never criticizing. She merely observes, watches people of all kinds and all shapes and sizes. Tall, short, fat, skinny, happy, sad, in a group, or all alone. She gives them a name, a story, a past, present, and future.

Like the tall, young, dark haired man she calls Sam. He stumbles by her each morning, with a stack of unruly papers in his arms, a shoulder bag that won't stay on his shoulder and a pained look on his face that she can only relate to that of a frightened rabbit. She imagines him wobbling into an office building in his wrinkled suit and crumpled tie, trying desperately to coral his papers and shoulder bag. She imagines the look on his face as he tries to explain to everyone why he's so late. She can't help giggling every time.

It's a game she plays with just her, her mind and the hundreds of people she sees everyday. It's a game she's good at, she always has been. She's smart, creative, clever and patient. She is very patient. For it takes patience to sit and imagine these peoples' lives, and patience to write some of them down, and patience to slowly let her soul seep out through her pours and into the world around her. So that she may interact with these people she watches. So she may ask them questions about their life and their opinions. So that she may meet these people and teach these people and reach these people, without ever getting out of her cold metal chair.

So that she can keep these people in her mind until her soul returns to her body and she can write her stories down. Just to get up and do it all over again.

But what she has yet to discover is that she is not alone. There are many who do the same thing. Many who watch and listen and imagine their days away. Immersing themselves in the stories of others. So that they can escape what ever troubles they may have in their lives and maybe, if only for a moment, be someone else.

She sits on the cold metal chair, her feet just barely touching the cement covered ground. Her brownish green eyes jumping from face to face, person to person. Watching people go by and not even noticing that there is someone else watching her.