She watched him. She watched him as he shuffled by. Lost to a stupor. Limping across the pavement. He swayed in front of her window, pausing, after each difficult step. Wavering beside indifferent, zipping traffic. His eyelids sagged as much as his mouth hung, they looked as close to weeping as he looked like he was about to drool. A full collapse seemed imminent, seconds away. Yet, still he stood. His eyes tried to decipher the steps before him. A path that may have as well have been written in a foreign mathematical alphabet. Lost. In direction, in life, in love.
His hat, twisted, his clothes soiled, and sagging. On this humid day he looked rained on. From his garments to the dirty plastic shopping bag dangling from the bloated fingertips of his swollen, scabbed hands, the stranger's appearance read like a tragic novel. There were no clues to his ancestry, though he looked too pale to be well. It was as if his genealogy had been woven from the collected horrors and traumas of our humanity's history. The stories swept away. Hidden out of sight, but never cleansed. From lives willfully forgotten. The man was sick, though it was clear he wasn't diseased. Perhaps poisoned with steady sorrow, and consequence from his vices. A tapestry of what should have been ill advised tattoos graffitied his arms below his filthy t-shirt's sleeves. Spider webs, devils, dice, cannabis leaves, blotchy buxom pin up girls. A bolt of cold shock made the hair on her arms stand to attention. Inked in crude calligraphy, faded by time, 'Veronika' ran along his forearm. Different spelling by a letter, it was the same as her name.
Veronika. The name twisted her heart more than the stranger's sad state. Not because of any association to Veronica herself. But from the obligatory story behind it. There must be one. Veronica had tattoos too. They meant a lot. Careful commitments, even her most impulsive ones. A lost love? The mark, glaring evidence that the walking deadman had once lived. That his heart had once loved. That it had harboured enough passion to scrawl an intention in large letters, forever inked, billboarded to the world.
Did they spend days in each other's arms? Did they whisper songs of sweet futures to one another? They must have. She must have moved him. Inspiring her name's place on him for as long as his skin held shape. Past his own existence. Until the body's inevitable disintegration. Their love had to be of tragedy. She couldn't be in his life for him to be so lost. If Veronica could wish for his safety, if she could return the stranger to his Veronika's arms, and land him within the love they'd once shared in that moment, she would have without hesitation.
Perhaps the adoration was unrequited. Perhaps he had been pulled into the rapids of addiction, caught in the current and she'd watched unable to shield him from the rocks. Unable to follow him down the pulling river. It's hard not to judge those who tattoo names as naive. As fools. Maybe the degree of judgement reflected Veronica’s inner insecurities, that she had never been so bold to jump, to say forever to another. Damning fear and good sense. Beyond tattooing. But of merging lives, of love.
Veronica wondered if anyone had loved her as much as the man had loved his Veronika. She worried that she hadn't.
He teetered. And rocked like a cradle. Willing himself to take a step, assuming he was cognisant enough to know he was moving. Thus far the amount of tracks made down his arm outnumbered the ones made in front of Veronica's window.
A nag that the stranger’s story may be more heart-wrenching than it appeared pulled at Veronica. What if that name was of a deceased child? A memorial. A testament. An attempt at translating unspeakable, unconditional love. She prayed for them all. That he hadn't lost her. That wherever she was, Veronika was alive and still held a reciprocal love for the man. That one day, Veronica herself would love with such magnitude that her feelings would permeate through her skin for the world to know.
The phone rang. The spell broke. Like everyone else, Veronica moved on. Another soul, another love, lost to the streets.
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-Mr. Write