The Song in the Night

We pulled up at a gas station, centred the van so that the ramp had room to deploy, and parked. We were around the side of the building both to give me privacy and because the sidewalk there is a little wider and it's easier to get out of the van. I could hear Joe speaking with someone, laughing as he did, outside the van. I turned to see who he was talking to and I saw a woman, in her twenties, wearing a company shirt indicating that she worked at the station. She, like Joe, was laughing.

The door opened, Joe set the ramp down and we began the process of getting me out of my manual chair and into my power chair. As I was doing this I heard someone, I thought, put on a radio station and this beautiful voice began singing. I asked Joe what he and she were laughing about. Joe told me that she was really nice, she saw the van and said, "I was just going to have my smoke break, before I do, is there oxygen being use in the van." Joe said there was not. She said 'Great, that would have been a nasty way to greet a customer and a horrible way to end a shift. Kaboom!" I laughed to and marveled, a bit, that she even thought about that. 

I got into my chair and Joe stepped out of the van to give me room to get out and I noticed the woman he had been speaking to having her smoke while cleaning up some mess that had been dumped out of a car. She was singing. That beautiful voice came from her. She saw me watching her and said, "Oh, sorry, I just love to sing, it makes my days a little brighter." I told her that her voice was stunning. It was beautiful, I thought that someone had turned on the radio, I said. She grinned, and thanked me.

"Surprising it comes out of something that looks like me isn't it?" I looked at her and saw a woman that would be called pudgy today and beautifully curvy and century ago. She had a blemish on her face and a brace on her leg. What? "No, it's not surprising." I said with real intent. "Maybe not to you," she said, almost bitterly, "Maybe not to you."

I didn't want it to end that way, our little encounter, "Not to anyone with ears, eyes and a soul" She laughed and said, "Gotta fine me more of those."

I didn't say it but, yes she does.