Illustration by Alex Siklos
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My grocery cart filled to my budget, I preview the checkout line options. The cashier at Lane 1 is calling for a price check; Lane 2 has three customers in line, each of their carts blessed with a bounty. I choose Line 3. Three people in line, one cart is filled with plenty but there are two lean ones, too.
I glance over at the magazines. The cover of one of the rags has a photograph of a man placed diagonally across the page with a caption on top that reads “World’s tallest man, so tall we couldn’t fit him on the page.” I laugh out loud and make a mental note to share this ludicrous claim at my weekend coffee date with friends. I look up at the cashier. He is trying to explain to a customer that her coupon does not apply to this store. I release a prolonged sigh. The customer asks to speak to a manager. I shoulder-check the other lineups, contemplating making a quick lane change. Not promising.
I reach for a People magazine and flip through it, searching for some juicy sustenance. But something compels me to look up. A toddler, attached to the woman just ahead in line, is staring right at me. She is nestled in her carrier and has poked her head up and over her mom’s shoulder to get a better look at the view. I feel my mouth stretch across my face with a smile.
Does anything demonstrate the wonder of the universe so vividly as the eyes of a young child? Those large deep liquid pools on a little face, whose features are mere buds, could shake the doubt out of even the most ardent skeptic. The way they stare you down, not even a flicker of the eyelashes to curtain the intimacy. It can cause me to tremble in my boots, as if the Creator stood before me, asking for an account of my life.
I’ve often tried to pierce through a youngster’s unwavering stare, break its tension (which is admittedly all mine) by becoming a complete fool. It’s a gamble I’ve never been able to resist. The child in question will always win the staring contest. Besides, I feel rude not answering the questions implied by their fixed gaze: Who are you? What part do you play in my world?
I answer the only way I know how. I make a face hoping for that instantaneous reward, her face lighting up in the acknowledgment of the comedic.
The evidence of one so new to this Earth getting the joke is a great mystery that playfully tickles my ego. When I do manage to break through, I’m a full-fledged comedian encouraged by the sweet nectar of my audience’s laughter. Emboldened, I will contort my face again and again, do little hand dances, play peekaboo, do a spin.
Today, however, my theatrics bounce off the stone wall of that fixed, unsmiling stare. So I double down, despite the furtive glances of the lady next to me in Lane 2. Some original material is required. I squat down behind my cart and pop up again in consecutive knee-cracking futility, sculpting my features into a distinct silly expression on each ascension.
No inner awakening is revealed on the face of this young stoic. Despite my failure, or perhaps because of it, I feel a curious veneration for my subject. She will take her time deciding what to make of me and determine if and when to reveal any conclusions. In the meantime, I am left squirming in a staring game that makes me want to confess to my childhood crime of breaking my mother’s vase and lying about it. I have fallen short of answering the question these steady eyes ask of me. I am the patient whose therapist is deliberately attempting to pull the real stuff out of me on the rack of her silence.
The baby looks away. I feel one part abandonment and two parts relief. I take a deep breath. Mom is entertaining her child by dangling a shiny bag of chips in front of her. The toddler reaches out and grasps the bottom of the packaging. A crisp crinkle sound is her immediate reward. She erupts in a delightful belly laugh and proceeds to squeeze the bag again, and again.
Suddenly she turns her head and, once more, locks eyes on me. All of the chip bag delight is washed from her face. We’re back to a solemn reckoning. I smile, hoping to convey that, yes, I too witnessed the wonder of the chip bag symphony. She dives into the soft cave of her mother’s bosom, blocking me from sight, happily unversed in the concept of object permanence.
I begin to place my groceries on the belt, feeling a wave of happiness. At this moment, there are two things I know to be true. First, I am indeed still here. Second, somewhere in the vast universe of those luminous eyes, I have made contact.
Shirley Stanton lives in Ottawa.
