Old Man, I miss you.

Bald head, erratic pace, he was on a mission, he caught my eye he reminded me of something (maybe someone). He was about 55 and he was carrying a bag of oranges and a magazine as he walked out of the library and straight through the bushes lining the trail. Did he notice those bushes, me staring directly at him? He stood still, in front of a bronze statue, the sort of statue you walk past maybe give it a little thought, lovely, sweet, I miss my little girl, I miss my mother, I can’t wait for thanksgiving, who the fuck cares? A mother hold her little girl in her lap, and reading a book, big smiles and pigtails, he put a magazine on the little girl’s bronze book, and opened it up. He didn’t smile; he just looked down on them, sitting on the bench. The real bench next to theirs was covered in snow, he kicked all the snow off, an old man kicking snow off a bench, and surely he wanted to sit there. He kicked the snow off, gave an indignant look to the mother and daughter, and walked straight through the bushes into the library, bag of oranges and all.
One thing I gathered from this is he’s a little strange, and very angry. I wanted to run into that little library and find him reading in the religion section, don’t worry your wife’s just going through a stage, your daughter really loves you, despite the fact she hasn’t hugged you in a decade, she thinks about you all day and every time something impressive happens she wants to call you. You’re the only one to ever break any of her bones. You’ve hurt her more than you could ever know; you were her hero, and how could someone that disdains violence and lives life as a sullen stoic act so violently toward his little love? She’ll live her life wondering about your anger toward her; maybe someday she’ll ask you why, what was going through your head? She doesn’t even think that it’s really wrong, is it wrong? How could he get away with it? Her mother never said a thing. It wasn’t wrong, I deserved it. Do all parents act like this? She always thought they did.
I ran to the bench right when the library door shut, my professor almost running me over with his bike. He has a daughter. It’s an L.L. Bean catalogue. And next to the little girl’s bronze foot is a car key. I picked both up and stuck them in my pocket.