Thousands of little orange wires sprout from his scalp, where bulks of curls collapse onto one another. Freckles by the masses dot the kid’s face, which surround two murky green eyes. He’s young, though I’m not sure how young – ten, maybe, let’s go with ten years old. It seems like kids always look younger than they actually are, especially now that I’m in college.
He walks back and forth a lot, waiting for his mother – here with him – to get off the computer. “When are you going to be done?” he asks every few minutes, only to be met with rolling eyes and responses like “Soon” and “Be quiet.”
He’s wearing camouflage pants (the kind that zip off at the knees to turn into shorts) and a bright orange t-shirt – brighter than his hair – with light up shoes that flash red and blue with every step he takes, pacing and pacing some more. He leans in over his mother’s shoulder, staring at what she’s doing until she rubs her head into her shoulder as if to tell him to go away – leave her alone.
His hands touch everything; every surface of every table and door and trashcan, and then they touch his face. I shudder every time he does it.
Unlike her son, she is not a redhead. Her hair is wiry and sandy brown with streaks of grey riding through it. Early forties, probably, as I can see some wrinkles starting to line her face. She’s working on her laptop, an older silver Dell model – I don’t know what she’s working on, but I know it runs Windows XP. She has headphones plugged into her ears, but I’m not sure if she’s actually listening to anything because she can hear her son just fine.
I’m guessing she has them in so no one bothers her, a fact that doesn’t deter her son from constantly prodding her with questions like “When are we leaving?” and “What are you doing?”
She’s wearing a purple sweater – which is ridiculous given how warm it is outside – and green khaki pants with brown moccasins. With those shoes, I might add, she’s wearing bright pink socks. A clear, half-empty cup of iced coffee is sweating, leaving a nice sized puddle of water around itself.
Her son walks outside after another failed attempt to get her to go home, looks at me and asks, “What’s up?”
I nod and say “Not much.”
He’s resting against the window with his hands behind his back, pushing himself away from the window and falling back into it over and over again – something I too do when I’m bored and leaning. He sighs a deep, exaggerated sigh and kicks his toes against the concrete. Inside, I see his mom close her laptop and shovel it into a briefcase before standing up, stretching, and downing the remainder of her iced coffee.
Excited to finally be leaving, the ginger boy runs back inside and stands next to his mother while she checks her phone. It’s like she’s making him wait on purpose, just because he kept annoying her with questions. Eventually they begin to walk towards the door, before she changes direction and, instead, walks into the bathroom – the one place he cannot follow her.
In a final moment of despair and disbelief – an act of surrender – he throws his hands into the air and once more leans his back into the wall.
The People Watcher 