Company

Here now comes the wind. 

I started the morning in a garage as an addition to a circle of mostly men preparing to work through an impending hurricane and it's near-future aftermath while trying to come to terms with the recent on the job electrocution of a coworker. 

I'm there for support. No one uses it though. Working men - nobody talks, at least not very often. By the look of some of the blearier eyes, they've found other ways to cope. 

One of the supervisors says a prayer aloud. He's asking God to bless these men about to face the storm and to bless the young man in the hospital, burned now inside and out, and his young family and the hands of the doctors and the nurses who are taking care of him. This brings a few involuntary tears to some. The door at least has been opened. 

On the way home, there's a run on the liquor store. Two drunk men are marveling about the ass on the woman who just walked out with a gallon of pink wine. I must have missed it. One of them spills a pocket full of change on the floor. He lets me go ahead of him and I pay for my purchase. 

Slow and steady, he tells me. Yes indeed, I respond.