Dragonfly

"Get a job!" Torstein wasn’t begging, but the Big Guy thought he was. He was doing the opposite of begging — he was offering. He had a bag of sunflower seeds, and he was offering them to people who passed by. It was kind of weird — but Torstein was a weird guy. Like, who’s going to take sunflower seeds from a stranger on the street? Especially one that looked like Torstein. He looked weird. For one thing, he always wore this bottle green coat, like he was leading an electric St. Patrick’s Day parade. I don’t think he had any other coat, but he gave the impression of being the kind of guy who had a hundred coats — probably really great designer coats — but chose to wear that one every day, like a costume. He really could have used that advice — "Get a job!" — but I never saw him too concerned about that. He seemed to prefer trying to hand out sunflower seeds to people who could have cared less. Every once in a while a kid would take a handful, but even then, you know the kid was wishing it were M & M’s. I was there the day Maggie first passed by. She had an entourage. There must have been seven assistants flanking her, left and right, with cell phones, pagers, PDA’s. Everyone had something to remind Maggie where she was supposed to be and what she was supposed to be doing. One of those seven must have flinched because somehow a bag of sunflower seeds got shoved in Maggie’s face — the assistants had let Torstein slip through! They’d been gliding along in phalanx, but he must have weaved in between them. It was kind of comical. When someone handed Maggie a phone, she talked. When someone handed her a PDA, she texted. When someone handed her a clipboard and a pen, she signed. When Torstein handed her the bag of sunflower seeds, she grabbed a handful. I think it was force of habit. I think these seven assistants had been programming her actions so long, she just assumed Torstein was one and did what he prompted automatically. Then — boom! She stopped. The whole phalanx stopped. She was standing there with a handful of seeds, staring at Torstein in his green coat. And I think, for her, for the first time in a long time, all her entourage disappeared. And for a minute, there was only her and Torstein. And she put some seeds in her mouth and spit out the shells, and laughed. It happened like that sometimes — instantaneously. Other times ... well ... Torstein was patient.