The laundry mat is packed. I don't know why. Its full of people like me. All left over people. People who avoid Saturday Sunday Soccer Mom's and guys with one load of tube socks and too much Cologne. So here I am with my left over brothers and sisters and Grandmas and weird old men who stare at you.
Its depressing. I hate laundry.
Crammed into a corner with a paper back and an orange pop and I wake up. Here I am washing my clothes. They look shabby in the blanching light of florescent bulbs.
One old woman stands by a large spinning dryer. She must be a thousand years old. Her face is sunken and worn out. Her hair is wild and straggled. Actually it is strange Champagne color. But it is frizzy. She wears a winter parka and a house coat under it. Her dress rises up as if static electricity holds it up. She wears stockings that sag around her ankles.
Some man who must be in his late fifties drinks a coffee and stares at this girl trying to fold a bed sheet. He is dirty, and wears a white t-shirt and blue jeans. He could be a dirty old man and nothing more. Yet part of him lingers on the grace of her form as if he is stunned by her hands quick and effortless tuck and fold of the four corners of the top sheet, a soft pattern of roses on a field of pink background. This could be the last beautiful thing.
In the farthest dryer in the corner someone has left a coin slip out and get caught in the tumbler. Its flat toneless repetition is slowly chipping away my youth.
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