The Waving Woman

The woman at the end of the street is waving at the postman who has left her door. She is waving at the garbage man who has emptied her cans; waving at the gardener who has tidied her neighbor’s yard. She waves so often and so evenly it is difficult to tell at whom she is waving. She is a comfort, a constant, a nightstand.

When she waves she turns her head a little left and right, like a paddle. The air, like water, is cut a little left and right. The cut pieces wave back to her as best they can, believing she has waved to each separately. They wave like a wind, a nod. Hello!

The people on the street smile and think she is waving just at them, not considering one iota the air she knifes through. So much goes uncared for.

When the earthquake strikes in Japan, huge waves roll out toward California, the seventh of them bigger than can be imagined. It does not go very far inland, almost up to the neighborhood east of the pier where it sees her from a distance, waving and waving, a flag of dry land.