Prayer
It was a cold and frosty morning. The boy could see his breath. Actually see it! “Look at that,” he said and blew again. His mother reached out to grab his arm—there was traffic, after all—and the streetlight was about to change.
“Hey!” he yelled. “You put your hand right in my breath?”
“What?” The mother pulled him along to the next store, her shopping bags knocking into her leg and rattling next to his ears.
They stepped up onto a curb just as two taxi cabs whizzed by. A man in a black coat, black hat, and beard walked with his head down, his hands deep inside pockets.
“He looks like he’s praying,” the boy said.
The sidewalk was so crowded with shoppers, and there was a Salvation Army Lady ringing a bell next to a metal basket and a bike messenger skimming by. Even so, the man stopped, lifted his head, turned toward the boy.
“You’re right,” the man said. “I was praying.”
The mother looked from the man to her son. “Excuse me?” she said.
“Your boy—he noticed I was praying.”
“What did you ask for?” said the boy.
“Hush,” his mother said.
The man lifted his hand to his beard.
“To see things differently,” the man said. “To see things new.”
The mother nodded, as if she understood.
“Wanna see my breath?” the boy asked.
With that, the boy blew hard into the air.
The white steam lingered, and the man with the beard stood inside the boy’s breath on that crowded day in the city full of holiday shoppers.
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