TAKE ONE

On the way to the drug store stands a woman and her table. She has pamphlets about God strewn about across the surface, held in place with various forms of paperweights - everything from rocks to glassware to hardcover books to decks of cards still in their packages. The table is a simple thing made of sturdy plastic with folding legs. She dresses it up nicely with a tablecloth, the front of which is embroidered in messy stitches to say: TAKE ONE. 

My apartment overlooks where she stands. Even through the constant, thick fog I can make out her silhouette. She comes Monday through Friday, eight in the morning until noon on the dot. I watch the few who dare to venture out steer clear of her. They cross the street once they get close enough to see her or rush their way by, too preoccupied to have noticed sooner. 

I wonder if she used to be a shouter. One of the people in her profession who stood on corners with megaphones, demanding attention, damning every passerby, invoking Christ and Satan and Hell and Heaven all the same. Just trying to get someone to look at them, really.

It doesn’t matter anymore, I guess. There are no more shouters. She might be the closest we ever get to one again, standing silently with her table. TAKE ONE. All capital letters. Yes, she absolutely used to shout.

People like her used to get under my skin. But now, now that everything has come to pass, I find her presence under my apartment window, on the way to the only operating drug store this side of the city, something like a comfort. As long as she’s still out there, things can’t be all bad.

I’ve never seen anyone take one of her pamphlets. Of course not. After all, everything has come to pass. You can’t trust anyone anymore. Especially not a stranger on the street, shouting at you, TAKE ONE. Why would you?

She’s out there every Monday through Friday, eight to noon. Whatever is in those pamphlets, she must really believe it. I’m curious. It’s been ten months now since everything has come to pass. Maybe there’s something for me to see in there, under the deck of cards, hidden in the flimsy pages of color print. Why else would she be placed right under my apartment window if not fate?

Today, I tell myself, is the day I TAKE ONE.

To go outside now, you start with the pants. Up high, almost to your chest. Then the coat, down low to your knees. Gloves, tuck them into the sleeves. Boots, tied tight around your calves. Last comes the mask. Big and bulky, drape it over your entire head and make sure every button and knot is done. Check once, twice, thrice, and then once more. You’ll get used to the heat and the way you hear your breath hiss in and out of the thin valves. You have to, or else you can’t ever step outside.

I have to go to the drug store anyway. I’m lucky to live so close. Before everything came to pass, this was the dirty part of town. I guess it still is, but it’s busier now, with the drug store. It’s the only one this side of town, you know. Maybe the only one left in the world. How am I to know?

I hurry down three flights of stairs until I’m out in the fog of the world. You get used to the stench of it, too. Sweet and hot and sour all at once. It used to make me nauseous. You have to get used to it.

It takes me only a moment to muster my courage. I check the deep pockets of my coat, feeling for my money. Yes, it’s all there. Normally I would cross the street here, same as the others who try to avoid the woman with the table. The shouter. She still is a shouter, really. Should I be afraid of her?

No. Monday through Friday, eight to noon for ten months now and I have yet to see her do something heinous. She’s as safe as anyone else is these days. 

I don’t cross the street. I walk down the block, towards the drug store, towards the shouter. Gradually, she comes into view through the fog. It isn’t until I slow near her that she turns to me. 

Making out her face behind our masks is impossible. She moves her shoulders first before her feet follow. Her head tilts inquisitively, trying to hide her surprise at being approached for the first time in ten months. Maybe longer than that. I’ve never seen anyone take something from a shouter. 

I falter. Drag my feet until they stop. My legs feel weak in front of her table. It’s been so long since I’ve been face to face with someone. Even through our layers upon layers of protective clothing, it feels intimate. 

She stares at me. I stare back. Then, she shuffles to the side and motions to the front of her tablecloth. TAKE ONE. The strings are loose, the embroidery completely lopsided. It’s not her talent. Nonetheless, she’s gotten the message across. TAKE ONE. With her fingers pressed tight together yet open, she makes a motion that is almost stabbing towards the letters. TAKE ONE. When I don’t, she repeats it again. TAKE ONE. Yes, she’s shouting at me. TAKE ONE TAKE ONE TAKE ONE TAKE ONE ALREADY. TAKE ONE AND BE SAVED. OR BE DAMNED, SEE IF I CARE. TAKE ONE. LOOK AT ME. LOOK AT ME. TOUCH ME, OR AT LEAST TOUCH MY TABLE. TAKE ONE. PLEASE.

Of course, there’s nothing but silence between us.

My hands shake as I move closer. She steps back, away, surely on instinct. I’m grateful for it. I only use two of my fingers to move one of the decks of cards off of a pamphlet. The cover is blue and gold and white and says, in all capital letters, CAN YOU BE SAVED?

Can I? I have wondered such things before. I certainly wasn’t raised to be saved. Not by God or man or anything. I’m not sure I believe in such a concept, actually. But once everything came to pass, I think it was a thought in everyone’s minds: can we be saved?

I step away, pamphlet in hand. When I look at the woman again, she is staring at me. I can’t see her eyes, but the holes of her full-face mask are staring, dark and deep and judging. She’s asking me herself, CAN YOU BE SAVED? 

I don’t know how to answer. Trembling, I open up the folds of paper, holding it up to my mask to try to make out the small, dark print. This is from the before times. Made for unclouded eyes. It’s difficult, but I search. I search through the gibberish of hell and high water, of end times, which have indeed already come to pass, of salvation which was offered to none on Earth when it did, of God who is powerful and angry, and yes it feels that way inside this mask inside this fog inside this world. 

It’s nonsense, all of it. A few verses quoted in no particular order, spliced and sparse and sprinkled without care, trying to call upon something that the writer might have felt but that just doesn’t exist in the world of sane men.

It does not speak to me. Maybe if the print were larger, if I could read it through the dark of my mask, I would understand something here. I look back at the woman, hoping my body language does not betray me. She’s still staring. Her chest is heaving. Is she also trembling? Does she also feel the intimacy between us here, and does she feel the weight of the nothingness on her table, held down by cards and rocks and books and empty glasses stained black from the air? 

Well, what do you think?

It takes me a moment to consider how to reply. In the end, I choose a single thumb, stuck up in the air. Good stuff. It’s fine. Thank you for your time.

Neither of us move until she returns the gesture two fold. A double thumbs up. THANK YOU. THANK YOU. THANK YOU. THANK YOU. I almost hear her shouting it through the haze.

I wait until I’m down the block before folding the pamphlet tight against itself. It goes down deep in my pocket, already forgotten, and I grab my modest wad of cash while I’m down deep in the fabric. I need tampons and toilet paper from the drug store. And on my way back, I will cross the street so that the woman with the table doesn’t see me. So that I can’t see her shouting in desperation: LOOK AT ME. LOOK AT ME.

There’s a stinging feeling of foolishness in me for having wondered even for a moment if her pamphlets about God might hold something for me. Even after everything has come to pass, nothing really changes.