Some winter days are pretty sunny, some of them are cold and sunny. Although this one was a winter day, it was neither cold nor sunny, nor pretty. It was wanned. Upon my waking, two hours before the first ring of my alarm, I knew what this day would lead me to. On a wanned winter day, my room was gloomy, there was no sun coming through the curtains, but it was not dark neither. The sun was trapped above the clouds, heavy. The kind of days that bring rain in winter.

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Stepping outside, I noticed the usual maneuvers of workers, of waiters serving coffees and pies to grandmothers, probably talking about their grand-children or the ones they do not have. Two pensioners reacting animatedly to yesterday’s game. A stroller walking down the same street as I was, kept looking at me. At first, I thought he was playing, so I kept my head straight up, walked faster, as if he was not there. I’d stare quickly with my left eye, trying to hold my head fast, looking at him at the very extremity of my sight. He was still there, I think I heard him laughing or giggling. He was having a fun time.

As I was walking by the fourth block now with him on my heels on the other side of the street, I decided to stop quickly. He stopped quickly as well. Worried, I looked over my right shoulder, pretending I heard footsteps coming from behind me, then I kept on walking. There was a large café at my right, not the one I am used to go, but nonetheless, it had beautiful padded leather couches, only a few tables, maybe four or fives, with candles and a single flower in a small vase on each of them, if I can recall with enough exactitude. Getting lost for a second looking in this restaurant, the stroller on the other side seemed to have migrated to my side of the street. It may have been him, or maybe it was simply another person, a new one. A possible friend, a probable new love, a family member. This new ghost kept following me, it was not following me, it was next to me.

As I keep on walking, I still see this café, its chairs, its sofas, candles, flowers and homemade brownie shelf. The memory of the first stroller came to my mind, the one I walked a few blocks with earlier on. I could see myself as I was looking through the glass of this empty place. I saw my reflection, the ghost of a stroller who today, under this gloomy sky, shed a tear as he walked by.

Was it the cold wind hitting his face, drying up his eyes to the point they had to drip to stay awake, or was it the lost memory of the first stroller who once was happy. It could have been the scene of a lovely coffee where pensioners shared a piece of their lives with the one they loved. But then maybe the empty café, the one that, like a theater set filled with nothing but what the stroller is able to fit in, was the cause of this gloomy day. Between the heavy clouds, the winter sun and the empty set of an ephemeral walk, the stroller and its ubiquitous ghosts wept alongside me today.

by Francis, all rights reserved.