I and Anna-- a little glimpse

I and Anna….

I tell you right off… no doubt about it: I am in love with her… She works over at the food store, I use, for getting my groceries…most of my needs—not all. It’s close by, and I can go out back of here—this complex, and nip through the car park and in the side door. Ha, ha…and it’s like I am in another dimension—just a short trip through space—I in transit… old sandals over my two pairs of socks I trudge around my apartment in, on the golden hardwood floors—small pack on my back…dark bluish pants, been sat in for a couple of weeks, and a brownish woolen sweater, does up at the front with a row of buttons… thin leather patches on the elbows and two side pockets: My space suit for this day… Space walk, I’m doing—Old hermit, stays in for days…‘till the grub’s gone at least.
I usually go early morning, when they open. They open at nine a.m.—ten, on Sundays. The one across the street opens at eight thirty...kind of has a more Supermarket, air to it … more shine… more creative play of light… not quite so low brow, as the one I go to. Anyway… a sprinkling of folk are scattered about the place…a couple of check out girls, seeing to their tills. The first ‘check-out’ not happening yet… Anna is there always, but she only works until noon…she told me once, in one of our brief chats…
She had paused one time I was there, having passed me in the Isle going for her morning break, when on impulse, I turned and called her and she came back…I said: “My name is …. And I told her it, in its abbreviated form… I said, you know, it’s really nice to come in the store and someone say: Hi!...” mentioning my name again… She was so cool… she smiled her pretty smile—she beamed, actually, saying “Okay … Ah! my name sounded so wonderful when she said it in her Asian manner—“and my name, Anna”… And now, sometimes when I don’t just spot her right off: I’m tugging away at one of the carts to loosen it from the others, my back to the check-0ut stalls… and I hear: “Hi …” and that lovely sound of her saying my name… and I turn toward it instantly… to see her smile… her sweet face… her black hair cropped short… slight little figure… light as a feather… sixty one—sixty three years old… so kind, so happy.
One time I was passing through her counter… and suddenly there was a bit of thump behind her… it was quite busy at the time…kind of gasps from people… One of the old ones had fallen… and Anna stopped everything left her station… out and around to take care of the situation, her face full of gentle concern…
One other time… I say to her lightly: “Any thing exciting happen over the weekend”? she smiles—“No, I old now, nothing exciting happen anymore…” I was shocked… “Anna!” I exclaim… don’t say that, it could be as near as just around the corner…. I happen to live kitty-corner from her, each of us at opposite corners of the car park… We laughed.
Such a short interlude in my life, those treasured moments I garner there at the checkout counters where others are about their tasks-- no time for a full conversation… “How’s life? Is about all-- they concentrating on the job at hand… Not time to soothe the hearts of loneliness-- old drying things for the want of the moist touch of tenderness, of touch…that a woman brings,
Well then it’s over… and I return… carrying images with me… as well as the groceries… the impressions of softness, of gentle concern… of simplicity … I sit at my table after putting the goodies away… sipping a tea…drifting, savoring--- then on with other things…
She’s married… I kind of thought she was… that’s why I didn’t stumble, or get rejected… someone told me later… I think she is the wife of the store owner… But nothing has changed… I don’t feel so committed maybe and wander sometimes to other stalls, but only to her, have I given my name…the others are younger… though we chat at times…
You see it never stops people… I mean the loving thing… I don’t know about sex… maybe it stops, eventually --- it being such a young passion, all correct with the ways of nature… The young, so sensually beautiful, as we old ones were once… So body beautiful… males and female: live it well… love it well… for it will change. And you too, old guy… with your shopping bags full of fantasy and dreams to ease your pain.