Emerald

         Green fire flashed before my eyes as I watched the emerald mounted in a gaudy gold ring on the wrinkled finger of an old woman. She shouldn't be wearing that thing. The emerald looked out of place on her ancient finger. Green is the color of life and she was on the waning end of it.
         The green fire flashed once more as I turned my gaze out the bus window to watch the landscape go by. It was desolate earth out there, not the green of life, like the emerald. There was green here and there, but it was a harsh olive green that seemed to be saying to the sky that it wanted more, needed more. The sky wasn't giving. The sky didn't care what the hideous green things needed; it was too far away to notice probably, like a lot of things in life.
         My back was aching so I shifted in the tight small space, searching for a position that would ease the pain, at least for a time. Three more hours till Phoenix. My gaze turned to the emerald, seeming out of place in all the wrinkles. She saw me looking and I quickly turned my gaze to the window.
         "Like it?" she asked, waving her ugly hand near my face.
         I smiled coolly and returned my gaze to the window. End of conversation. She didn't take the hint.
         "My husband, God rest his soul, gave me this ring when I had my first child." She laughed a little before she started hacking all over me. I scooted closer to the window. This time I leaned my head against the window and closed my eyes. Again the hint was ignored; her rasping voice invaded my mind.
         "You see, those years were hard for us."
         I opened my eyes to see her nodding and her eyes gazing to the past. No, I didn't see.
         "But he stayed true to me. He loved me. Cherished me." She gazed at the ring fondly and touched it with a yellow-nailed finger.
         I wanted to tell her that was ridiculous. No one felt those feelings, truly. I was old enough to know that feelings like those were a farce. I actually opened my mouth to tell her so but then I looked into her eyes and I saw the truth. Her eyes were green and I didn't like it.
         "I can see you've seen some hard times too." She patted my knee and I moved it quickly away from her unwanted touch.
         "You know nothing about me." I said this with a certain amount of disdain, hoping to discourage her from saying anything more.
         "Actually I see myself in you. I've felt that hate I see all over your face. I've felt that pain I see in your eyes." She pointed at my heart. "I've had that broken more than once before I found my cherished one." She grabbed one of my hands in her cold bony wrinkles. "I've held my anger in my fists and watched them do talking."
         I was too shocked by what I was hearing to remove my hand from hers. How could this woman know all that? How could she possibly understand me without my having said but five words to her?
         She showed me the ring again. This time I saw how the green of her eyes matched the emerald.
         "My first was a girl. Beautiful and sweet. We named her Angel because that's what she was to us, an angel." She smiled tenderly. She seemed about to go on, but another bout of coughing took her. She was wheezing by the time this one was over. She took a drink from a small water bottle and leaned her head back against the high bus chair and closed her eyes.
         I watched her for a time and then looked out the window. The bus was driving into a raging inferno of red, yellow and orange. Like what I felt inside. There was no more green.
         "Angel died when she was a year old." She whispered into my ear. I jerked around to her and saw her eyes rimmed with tears. What was I supposed to say to that?
         "Sorry," I finally stammered out.
         She waved my apology away. "No, girl. I didn't tell you that for sympathy." She smiled. "I tell you that because I got to have a year with her. I got to have her in my life."
         This antique lady was confusing me. How could having something and then losing it be good? I shook my head at her.
         "You don't believe me. Let me ask you something."
         I looked at her warily.
         "Have you ever had some thing that you liked? Were fond of? A toy or pet?"
         I shrugged my shoulders in a noncommittal sort of way.
         "What was it?"
         I smiled a little embarrassed. "A doll."
         "Do you have memories of this doll?"
         "Yeah."
         "What kind of memories?"
         Again I shrugged my shoulders.
         "Were they horrible or sad?"
         "No." I laughed.
         "So they were happy."
         "I guess so."
         "Do you still have this doll?"
         "No."
         "But you still have some good memories. They make you smile. I can see it."
         I didn't want to admit she was right, but she was. The sun had sunk further down now and the inferno had cooled off to the less threatening colors of purples and blues. I looked at my watch. An hour till the stop in Phoenix. An hour and she'd be far from the memories.
         "Are you stopping in Phoenix?"
         "Yeah. For a while I guess."
         "Have you got family there?"
         I made a rude noise and rolled my eyes. "I hope not."
         The matron simply nodded. "Running away?"
         "I guess."
         "You know, running usually doesn't get anybody anywhere they really want to be."
         "Thanks for that," I stated with some intense sarcasm. Just when I was actually starting to like her a little bit, she had to go and say some stupid euphemism.
         "I say that because I know."
         "Look lady, I don't care what you know. I know me, I know my life and I want you to stay out of it."
         She continued like she hadn't heard me. "I ran for a long time. I hated everything around me." She reached up and turned on her little light above her head. The emerald sparkled and I couldn't help but watch it move it the light. "It was a long time before I figured out what I was actually running from."
         Her last statement intrigued me. "What was it?"
         "Life."
         Was that really what I was running away from? The more I thought about it the more I had to agree with her. My old life, that was what I was running from, but I didn't think this was a bad thing. The abuse was what was bad. She had it all backwards.
         "I decided to stop running. It can get very addictive. When I finally stopped, I realized I'd run away from a lot of nice things, trying to get away from a few of the bad things."
         "You really don't know, lady."
         "Perhaps." She smiled like she knew everything inside my head and I felt the anger in my fists and had to put them under my thighs.
         The lights of the city twinkled like land-bound stars. I didn't know where I'd go once I left the bus, but I knew it had to be better than sitting in the bus and definitely better than everything I'd left behind. I was getting anxious to start something of my own. My own life with my own rules.
         "Here."
         Something dropped into my lap. I reached down and pulled up the ring.
         "No thanks." I tried to hand it over to her.
         "You take it."
         "No," I stated more firmly this time and pushed the ring at her.
         "I see myself in you, girl, and it scares me."
         "What?"
         "You don't relate to me, I can see, but I can relate to you. Take the ring."
         "I don't want the ring."
         "I know. You want to forget me, leave me behind, like everything else, but I'm telling you to take it. I don't need it. My life is almost over."
         I looked at her face, wrinkled and aged. My first thought on seeing this ring had been that the lady didn't deserve it. I was wrong. She'd lived a life I hadn't even cared to know about. I wrapped my fingers around the ring and nodded. At least I could have this part of her life.