Levi was having the time of his life.
"Come on boy, that doesn't look like a stick to me..." Sue told him to come. He did and dropped a child's mitten at her feet. "This must have been lost some time ago," she thought aloud, as she looked at the granules of dirt and sand covering the pink knitted fingers. Taking it from him, she placed it on the bench, hoping that maybe the child who lost it would find her way back to this park.
A slight breeze ruffled her hair. "I think God gave us wind so we could tell that He's close enough to breathe on us. It's one thing that you can feel, see, smell, and hear...almost anybody's lucky, 'cause they can do at least one." She patted him on the head. "I can smell hot dogs, ice cream, smog...one thing I wish I couldn't...what about you?" Levi barked and raised his head. "You stopped listening after 'hot dogs', didn't you?" Another, as if to say, yes.
She brushed her hands over the bench. Many people had written their names on it. "If it wasn't technically vandalism, I'd try it myself. You know whose initials I'd write." Pause. "Sometimes I think we'll just go on forever, like planets always orbiting each other but never colliding. All the show we put on, like last night,...it doesn't feel real. Or it does until we get called back to reality. I savour every moment we have...they're so rare...sometimes 5 minutes can seem like an eternity, and sometimes it seems like seconds"
She stopped talking here, perhaps pausing to catch her breath, perhaps because she was afraid in a funny way because her department tended to "misuse" their technology and clout, particularly to prank each other. She didn't want her doggy confession to be broadcast to her whole unit.
"Let's get going. You running on empty yet?" To answer, Levi trotted over to a bush and hid behind it. "You're so modest," she laughed. Walking over closer to the hedge, she whipped out a plastic bag, just in case. She didn't notice the man that was watching her.
Levi's head twitched up. Sue looked to the side. She didn't see the man walk up behind her.
He touched her shoulder with his index finger.
"Ackk!" she yelled. Her vocal cords were exercised needlessly.
"Sorry I scared you." Jack said. He held out a blue baseball cap. "You forgot this. I was bringing it to you"
Sue took it from his hands. It was not hers. "How could I forget something that isn't even mine"
Jack's eyebrows went up. Then he smiled with half of his mouth. "That's what I was trying to tell myself. Unfortunately, I never listen"
"Just looking for an excuse to watch over me?" Sue wasn't fooled for a minute.
"Maybe it was a bit of that...too. The danger is real. I guess it was you pretending that it didn't exist that really got me"
"The way you do all the time"
"I guess..." He paused. "I guess we notice it more when it's somebody else doing the ignoring. If it's you, call it 'courage'. If it's anyone but you, call it 'being foolhardy"
"Double standards, then?" She grinned, taking his hand. "Standards of love"
With those words, all that she had been hoping for was fulfilled. In a perfect minute, that was no less beautiful than an hour could ever be, they looked at each other with more understanding and feeling than she was sure they ever had. Levi was the alarm clock that brought them out of their waking dream. A nudge said it all.
"Let's go back," Sue said. Jack walked by her side, in silence, and even Levi seemed to realize the sweetness of this perfect time, for he never interrupted it. The best type of together was one that not only left them wanting something more, but assured them that in all due time their wish would be granted. It was this assurance that made them perfectly okay with waiting.