The Airportline: Observations

This is a short story I wrote this fall. Might go well with a quiet Sunday evening.

He walked through the door with proud steps, steps that said I am here. He was a person who walked through life thinking that walking was the whole purpose of his existence. Days were movement possibilities. When he was eight he broke his leg, but no one had time to sign his cast. No one painted green crocodiles on it, and no one wrote “Chelsea Football Club rules”, even though he did think that Chelsea Football Club ruled, at least that was what we thought. He was everywhere and nowhere, with his white cast. Sometimes I saw him from my window, limping across the wet asphalt of the school yard. When the asphalt was dry and summer planted flowers in the garden where he fell, he still limped around. He became a permanent moving image in a life that did not spin fast enough for any of us. He was a boy with a cast, and now he was a man, still with a cast. He opened the door to the café where I was sitting, reading a two day old copy of the Sunday Times by the window.
Hey! How are you? I said.
The man with the cast moved towards me with a blank expression on his proud body.
Who are you? He said while circling around my round table and me as if he was a planet that suddenly was in orbit around me.
I’m Frank, Frank from middle school. I used to watch you limp over the school yard with your cast.
Did we ever talk?
No, you were always moving around.
Why didn’t you just ask me to stop?
I don’t know, I guess I never thought about that.
Is that a two-day old copy of the Sunday Times? He asked, still orbiting around me as if I was the sun and he was the earth.
You want to take a walk? I asked.
Yes, he answered.
He opened the door and the asphalt was wet and we were both walking, orbiting around the same world, together.