The Scent Of Red
She is Special in this town. "Everyone else is drinking their 'Expresso'. She says in her Nasal New York muttering. She sits, in a life which seems to have had every one of it's moments lived, enjoying the strange little sounds. "Everywhere I go its always Expresso and more Expresso. I can't stand the stuff.' She sips her warm mug, the second-rate coffee bolstering her sentimental annoyances further.
She can't see the pigeons anymore. But she hears them take to the sky in bursts. The sunlight breathes on her knitted skin. She can't see the tower anymore. She can't see its lights when they come alive every hour on the hour. But she sits where she can hear the other tourists exclaim things when the lights come on.
"Look! Look! The Lights Dear!", she hears a woman say. She was that woman once. Her dear was never impressed with all the trips she took here. And yet now she comes here and her dear is everywhere.
She is special in this city. The Waiter still loves to have her come every year even if she hates 'All the Expresso'. He stipulates to his younger relief that he is to leave her the reddest rose in the vase on her table. The relieving Server asks why she gets the reddest- after all she can't even see it.
"Non monsieur." The Waiter replies to the Server, with a look of stern manly resolve that says "No one sees a rose more red than the blind woman who catches it's scent." Yes. There is not a hue of red can capture the color she smells...
Solomon Landerman