The sun is very hot today. I am sitting on a green bench outside the big food store. I have a cold cup of water in my hand. I am not in a hurry because I do not have a job today. I like to watch the world go by. My English is still a little new, so I watch people’s faces to understand them. I have a very rare thing on my right hand. I have six fingers. The extra finger is small, but it works. I use it to tap on my knee while I sit on the warm wood of the bench.
The parking lot is full of cars. Many people are walking inside to buy food. I see a man near a blue car. He looks very tired. His clothes have dirt on them, like he was working hard in the ground all day. His face is very dark under his eyes. He is putting bags of food into the back of his blue car. He moves very slowly. He drops a bag of apples, and they roll on the black ground. He stops and puts his head in his hands. He looks like he wants to cry because his day was already very bad before this moment.
Then, a loud noise comes into the parking lot. It is a bright red car with a very loud engine. The car drives very fast and stops right behind the tired man’s blue car. It is not a real parking space. It is a space with yellow lines where cars are not allowed to stop. It is for emergency trucks only. The red car does not care about the yellow lines.
The door of the red car opens. A young woman steps out. She looks about twenty years old. She is wearing a very bright yellow dress that is very tight. She is a little bit heavy, but she walks like she is a queen on a stage. She keeps touching her hair and looking at her reflection in the car window. Her face has a lot of makeup, and she looks very proud of her face. She acts like she is the most beautiful girl in the whole world, but her eyes are very mean. She has a very angry mouth.
A man gets out of the passenger side of the red car. He is her husband. He is wearing very clean white shoes and a gold chain. He looks very spoiled, like his parents always bought him everything he wanted. He immediately starts pointing at the tired man. He wants the tired man to move his blue car because the red car wants to go closer to the store doors. He does not want to walk far in his clean shoes.
The young woman walks over to the tired man. She does not ask nicely. She starts waving her hands in his face. She speaks very loudly, and her voice is high and sharp. She tells him that they are very important people and they need to park exactly where his car is. She says she is too pretty to walk from the back of the parking lot in the hot sun. She thinks the rules of the parking lot do not apply to her because of her looks. She believes the law is only for simple people, not for someone like her.
The tired man does not move. He looks at her with very cold eyes. He is so done with everything today. He does not say many words. He tells her that he was there first and he is loading his food. He tells her to go away. His voice is very flat and has no energy, but he is very stubborn.
The spoiled husband gets very angry now. He walks up close to the tired man and pushes his shoulder. He tells the tired man that his wife is a very special girl and she always gets what she wants. The young woman stands behind her husband and smiles. She looks very pleased with herself. She thinks she is wining this fight because she is beautiful.
The tired man takes out his phone. He does not yell. He presses some buttons. I can hear him speaking to the phone. He is calling the police. He tells the phone that two people are blocking his car and hitting him in the parking lot. The young woman laughs very loudly when she hears this. She says the police will not do anything to her because she is too beautiful to go to jail. She believes she is safe from everything.
Now, things become very fast and crazy. A young boy is pushing a long train of metal shopping carts back to the store. There are maybe twenty carts joined together. Suddenly, a big black dog escapes from a lady’s hand near the entrance. The dog is very happy and runs very fast. It runs right between the legs of the boy pushing the carts. The boy loses his balance and lets go of the metal carts.
The long train of carts starts to roll down the sloped ground of the parking lot. It moves faster and faster. The tired man sees the carts coming and steps to the side. But the young woman and her husband are too busy looking at themselves in the car mirror to notice. The heavy metal carts crash directly into the side of their beautiful red car. There is a very loud sound of breaking glass and bending metal. The side of the red car gets a giant dent, and the paint is scratched off.
The young woman screams like a wild animal. Her face becomes very red and ugly. She does not look like a queen anymore. She looks very foolish. Her spoiled husband starts running after the boy who was pushing the carts, but the boy is already running inside the store to hide.
The tired man looks at the broken red car. He does not smile, but his face looks a little bit lighter. He puts his last bag of food into his trunk and closes it. He gets into his blue car. The red car is still blocking him a little bit, but he drives over the curb and onto the grass to get around them. He does not care about the grass. He just wants to go home. He drives away slowly.
I look down the road to see if the police are coming. I wait for ten minutes, but no police cars arrive. The police are probably very busy with bigger crimes in the city. The young woman is now sitting on the dirty ground next to her scratched red car, crying very loudly because her expensive toy is ruined. Her husband is yelling at the sky. I finish my water and stand up from the bench. I walk home under the hot sun, tapping my six fingers against my leg.
