5
He Visits
by Neil McGowan
Let’s just agree that no matter what occurrences or true motivations preceding Darren’s materialization at the entrance of La Vista apartments on San Vicente, he was there and that’s that.
He was vacillating between truly wanting her to suddenly appear and sincerely dreading that she actually would, but constantly recognizing that his wants and fears on the matter were completely inconsequential in regards to what was actually going to happen. The universe cares not a jot what you hope or hope to happen, a conclusion he’d come crashing into of late. When she did suddenly appear only five minutes later with a small key in hand, headed toward the bank of small mailboxes he was standing an angle opposite from, he momentarily thought he might be imagining it. But she was really there, at first not noticing him, and in that moment he made up his mind that he definitely wished she’d hadn’t appeared. Thanks, universe.
She noticed him out of the corner of her eye, and the hand holding the key that was starting to extend toward the lock on the mailbox instantly retracted in a self-defensive reflex. Her eyes were wide in panic and her shoulders were comically up nearly to her ears, but Darren’s general non-confrontational posture helped to almost instantly put her more at ease. She visibly softened, exhaled, took a long blink, and said “Oh, hey.” As if to suggest that it wasn’t his presence per se that caused her frenzy, but that she would react that way if some stranger was standing there when she went to retrieve her mail, and that she was actually relieved to find that it was Darren instead. When in fact she’d probably be happier to find a vagrant wandering off the street staring at her. But whatever.
Darren found himself in one of those situations where he really had to buckle down and act as normal and well-adjusted as possible, displaying no signs of distress or unbalance whatsoever. He forced a warm smile and as