Mo

I was walking along the Hudson River (near the midtown piers), waiting as my car was being serviced, striving to get my 10,000 steps in, when suddenly I heard a voice.

“Hey!”

“Hey,” I said, saluting, a little unsure of myself. A 30-something-ish black woman in a uniformed coat waved me over to the fence she was standing behind. She was eating cashews out of a bag.

“Nice day, right?”
“Definitely,” I said.
“You see the ducks?”
“Yeah.” There were nine ducks floating nearby. “I love those ducks,” I said. “They’re so cute.”
“You should see the little ones.”
“Where are they?”
“Sleeping now,” she said. I glanced at the logo on her sleeve but didn’t recognize it. She smiled at me. We were silent for a moment. We watched the ducks.

“They love me,” she said. “They’re waiting for me when I arrive for work.”
“That’s so cool.”
“My name’s Mo,” she said.
“I’m Rob.”
We told each other it was nice to meet each other. I lowered my mask when I said it. She wasn’t wearing one, but we were separated by the fence, and were roughly seven feet away from each other. The sun shone brightly. Life was good.