Rain Gods
Dear Diary:
I was leaving my house in Forest Hills for my usual morning stroll. The darkening storm clouds made things look iffy for a walk, but I decided to chance it. Off I went without an umbrella.
I had only gone a few blocks when it started to drizzle. A little farther on, a steady rain began. I picked up my pace in the direction of the tennis stadium, hoping to take cover under some nearby trees.
Once I got there, I spotted a lonely umbrella on a low stone wall. I picked it up and, reflecting on my good fortune, looked to the sky. “Thank you, rain gods,” I said.
As I continued on, the rainfall got heavier. I saw a woman in business attire walking toward me. She was frantically searching her bag. I assumed she was looking for an umbrella.
I approached her and waved.
“Here,” I said. “Take my umbrella.” Then, as I handed it to her, I added, “It’s a gift from the rain gods!”
— Alan Cory Kaufman
Turtles and Bees
Dear Diary:
It was summer, and I was at a playground in Central Park with my children. A parks worker approached us and said the playground was closing.
When I asked why, he pointed to a branch in a nearby tree. I saw a beehive with many bees buzzing around it.
We headed down the hill to Conservatory Water. While walking around the pond’s perimeter, we encountered several turtles that were walking on the path.
After watching them for a few minutes and wondering what they were doing there, we watched a woman run toward them, scoop them up, kiss them on their shells and put them in a carrier.
They were pets out for a walk.
— Daniel Grover
At the Deli
Dear Diary:
I go to the same Lower East Side deli every morning. Many days, a woman who is probably in her 70s or 80s and always dressed in several layers of coats and stockings comes in.
“I’m extra hungry for my bagel today,” she often says.
The sleepy crowd doesn’t usually respond.
One day, though, she opened with something different.
“Quick with my bagel,” she said. “I’ve got someone at home that I don’t trust!”
Intrigued, I asked who she was referring to.
“Somebody who doesn’t like my pet,” she said.
Turning to the man preparing her bagel, she added: “Not too much butter. You always put too much butter!”
I asked what kind of pet she had.
“A parakeet,” she said. “And I’m afraid of what she might do.”
What was that?
“Don’t make me say it,” she said.
She rushed through an explanation of how, against her better judgment, she had rented her spare room to the granddaughter of a friend and the granddaughter’s boyfriend. Now she was trying to get rid of them.
“This woman isn’t usually awake when I come to the deli in the morning, and today I think she’s up,” she said. “I’ve got to get back there. I don’t trust her!”
With that, she grabbed her buttered bagel off the counter and hurried off to save her parakeet.
— Fletcher Laico
Apricot Blossoms
Dear Diary:
When we moved to Brooklyn, we planted a rosebush against our front yard fence. It had delicate apricot blossoms with a beautiful scent.
As it grew, it would spill over the top of the fence onto the sidewalk. In late autumn’s cool days, there would always be one or two roses that seemed to last for weeks.
Naturally, people passing by would stop to smell the roses. Occasionally, I would come outside and see the ragged stems where someone had torn off a few. The selfishness upset me quite a bit.
One October morning, I came outside to see a woman with her face and hands in the rosebush. I was on the verge of scolding her for taking a rose when she spoke to me.
“My friend liked to stop here every day to smell the roses,” she said. “He died last week, but that rose is still here.”
I had to go inside and lean against the wall with my eyes closed.
— June Alpert
Bananas
Dear Diary:
I was on the M4 bus headed crosstown toward Columbia on a dreary February morning.
The bus was crowded but quiet. Most people had headphones in and were staring blankly out the windows.
An older woman flagged down the bus as we approached the stop before mine. She was carrying several bags of groceries. As she got on, she seemed to be searching her pockets before reaching into one of her shopping bags.
She pulled out a bunch of bananas, ripped off two, handed them to the bus driver and took the nearest seat.
“Hey,” the man next to me said, “did that lady just pay for the bus with bananas?”
Other riders laughed, and the banana lady smiled along.
I was on the M4 two weeks later when the same woman got on at the same stop.
She paid in bananas again.
— Grace Manning
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