A class assignment, a 1-2 page short story/prose.

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It would never be an unlikely circumstance that Mrs. Pin and Mr. Samstook would be sitting on the same park bench at the same time, on almost any weekday. A park is a nice place to have a bench — a little place of quiet in a larger place of quiet. 

    As it would never be unlikely, so it is not, and Mrs. Pin and Mr. Samstook are sitting on the same park bench on a sunny Tuesday, early afternoon. They’ve sat with each other before and are comfortable with that.

    Mrs. Pin had gotten there first. Mr. Samstook arrived some time after she’d sat down; he was walking and when he saw from some distance her white hair, fluffed neatly atop a wrinkled head and face, and the plump of her round stomach swaddled in the middle fabric of a knee-length pink dress layered by a purple, cotton, button-up sweater, the vague sense of familiarity warmed in him, and so he was drawn to sit down on the familiar bench with a familiar old woman.

     Mr. Samstook had stood at the side of the bench for a second, quiet. Then he decidedly  reached his hand to the back of the bench to support his sit, and slowly descended his rear until his thick, over-washed khaki corduroy slacks bunched below the buckled belt sitting low at his waist, and under his own rounded belly. Mrs. Pin didn’t say anything when Mr. Samstook sat beside her, but they both assumed he was welcome.

    In front of Mrs. Pin and Mr. Samstook is a mother and young child in the grass. A red frisbee is tossed back and fourth between them — tossed surely and easily from the mother, feebly and clumsily from the little hands that are still new to learning. 

    Mrs. Pin huffs a little bit.

    “I hope she’s teaching about the thumb,” she says with strain and tiredness. 

    Mr. Samstook is quiet for a moment.

    “It doesn’t really matter much now,” he softly grunts back. He brings his hands to his lap and folds the worked, crumpled hands together. Then he separates them to have each hand grasp and rest on his khaki knees. “About the thumbs, I mean.”

    The red frisbee goes back and fourth between the learned hands and the learning hands. It never stops — it wobbles in the air every once in a while. Sometimes it’s passed smoothly, sometimes not. But it keeps going back and fourth in the short-enough distance between the mother and child.

    “I always thought it mattered,” Mrs. Pin says.

    “Naw,” Mr. Samstook says. “Then again, you could do it either way, I suppose, though.”

    Mrs. Pin nods silently and looks still on the mother and child.

    “Either way’s fine,” she solemnly concludes. She moves her arm out in front of her to wave her hand back and fourth, the tips of her fingers hanging down as if the rest of her arm was being held up by a sling but the hand was limp and hanging off. Her thin silver bracelets jingle a bit. “It goes back and fourth in any way.”

    Mr. Samstook is quiet and nods. She’s right, “in any way,” back and fourth.