The Escalator

Helen took her usual seat just near the bottom of the escalator. She really didn't come to the mall to walk anyway...this was her favorite pastime. Every Wednesday, Rosewood Retirement and Assisted Living facility would load up those who could still load up, and graciously dump them all off at the mall. Getting out was supposed to do them good...hhhmmmppp. Usually it was the same group of seniors...those who had no surviving family, which simply put, meant those who never had children. Helen not only never had any children, she had never married, and that made her an instant outcast among her "friends." Oh sure, they were polite enough, but being a spinster...she may as well have had a Scarlett Letter tattooed on her forehead. Many thought she was strange, a lesbian maybe, or crazy...truth was, Helen had always been a loner, even in her youth. She only ever had one best girlfriend, and breast cancer had taken her at the tender age of forty-nine. She kept to herself in the twilight of her years never really letting anyone get close. She had been madly in love only once, but it went unrequited. The experience was so devastating to her heart that she vowed never to let anyone in again. Stubborn as a bull and true to herself, she lived by those words and now here she sat...alone...in a mall...sitting on a hard concrete bench...watching people riding up and down the escalator.

She watched mothers strolling their infants with envy. She cringed at the young girls with their indecent wardrobe and loose behavior. Up and down the escalator...she watched life unfold around her. It made her especially melancholy to see elderly couples. One day, she sat watching as a distinguished older man gently guided his beloved onto the escalator...so careful and tender he was taking her elbow and placing a steady hand on her lower back. She watched them travel all the way up, and he never let go of her. He stayed firmly planted until they reached the top, and then he ushered her off the same way he had ushered her on...with tenderness and a loving hand. Her whole life she had imagined a love that would last forever...that even in the sunset of her life he would still care for her, look at her, and love her the way he did when they first met. A single tear rolled down her thin, wrinkled cheek as she thought of the man she once loved so dearly...even after so many years the emotion was still remarkably strong. She cleared her throat, sniffed, wiped the tear away, pushed her glasses back up on her nose, and turned her attention back to the escalator....her favorite pastime.