We'd been runnin' on some different clocks, the world. It was a man in a mildew-smelling crumpled ball of a jacket that tapped the other man's chest. Relief.
"She didn't know that," the ex- of an ex- coming back from lunch relayed to end a working strike. Dumb-faced the man had a round to shoot out of his mouth before cooling off. "You done?" The woman asked. He drained his beer and didn't bother to crush it. "Good. We can recycle this one," a girlchild hungry 'cuz only mac and cheese for breakfast. "Back to work," she ordered. "How could she not know?" The man didn't whine, but more plead than jerk on reigns that only felt to have disappeared.
"Well," the tiny-framed and straight-backed woman paused long enough for every man to get up, "Did you go home last night?"
That just about shut the whole town up, tipping on toes to hear.
Inside, settling back into work duties we were silent but each of us turning things over in our heads. Finally someone just asked out loud, "How can it be a war and not be a war?"
"They're not calling what happened a war?"
"Was definitely a war."
"Can hot wars turn cold?"
One man opened a door to outside and growled at some women suddenly looking for something lost. "It's not any of yer bidness but it ain't having to do with my marriage."
"Jeez, like we'd be that nosey."
"Oh good. I'll let the others know."
"Would you please. Call off the dogs."
The newspaper news about it all was getting further and further from the front page.
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