Shine

A grim, gray day, endless rain coming in off the ocean. Endless calls from other people, "What part do we need for this?" "Can you order it for us?" "A happened and then B happened, what does it mean?" "Do we hold this part toward the motor side, or toward the brake side of the centrifuge, when we're tightening it up on the horizontal shaft?" There he was. At the grocery store, picking up some stuff - we were going to be working late that night. God, people are slow, wandering around like they don't know what they want, like they have no other place to go. Get out of my way, get out of my way. Tunnel vision in the fog, man on a mission, big mass moving at speed to the end of the task. There he was, in his mom's shopping cart, staring at me. Little guy, probably 2 years old, 'Popeye' looking with a knit cap on his head, half winking at me with one eye. Smiling. He was beyond 'stranger anxiety' or never had it. He looked at me, and he knew me - I was one of his. He was a shaman, an imp, a grinning cherub with a touch of guile. So young, but he was aware, aware that he *was,* and that on the other end, there was somebody who also was, and he felt the humor and joy which surely must be mystical. I've thought of him a thousand times, his little face. A bright sun in a dark universe.