frida

FRIDA HAD SLIPPED MY MIND. She was just gone. Poof! Away in a small cloud of atoms, dust, and smoke. I hadn’t thought about her in ages. Her existence had been archived and lost in those vast stacks. Misplaced. We lived very different lives. If you took an old-fashioned globe and set it to spin, she would be over here and me all the way over here. We still spoke the same language, the language of the British, but I wondered if we could understand each other.

But there she was one day, getting into an elevator and there I was, running to squeeze in beside her. She looked the same. Her dark hair was lush, bushy, curly, her pale face wore the same look of frustration. Frustration with things. Frustration with the world. A beige raincoat, rubber boots. For Frida, life was always raining. I rushed into the elevator, but fortunately I had a dog with me. I knew that Frida would never speak to me again, even in an elevator, but I also knew she had a soft spot for dogs. Frida could not resist the temptation of small furry animals.

She gave me an annoyed look and her eyes rolled over me once and then they hit the small dog below me, restrained by a red leash. She stooped down and said, “Ooohsooowoozoo!” Or whatever it is women say when they encounter a dog they like, and she stroked him behind his ears whispering, “Yes, yes?” Then she looked at me. “Well,” she said in a northern accent. “I never thought I’d be seeing you again.” I only nodded. Better to remain silent. The elevator buttons lit up as we moved between floors. “Don’t you remember how you brought her flowers every morning?” said a faint voice. “And how you left them behind her window glass? Don’t you remember? Don’t you remember?” Indeed, I was once capable of such things so long ago.

The elevator came to a halt and its doors opened. I saw a country landscape with thick shiny green grass and a red Victorian house in the distance. A stone path led from the elevator, which was lodged inside a bus stop shelter, and the house, which belonged to Frida’s family. Frida exited the elevator and various forest animals crowded her at once, deer, hares, squirrels. She stopped and smelled an enormous sunflower. “Oh, it’s so good to be back. And my sister’s here!” she said. Then she turned to me and said, “Well? Are you coming or not?”