Off key

The day started with a sound, then an image.
I heard her before I saw her. Then I passed the restaurant at the corner, the one which looks always closed with the large metal bars on its windows. She was right there, an old black lady seated on the stoop, holding a battered paper cup. Basking in the sun and singing loudly and shamelessly off key. That sound sustained me all the way to the subway.

Then in the afternoon, the guy from the vegetable truck who ran after me to give me the last cucumber. I was walking back to my office, eating one of the tomatoes I had just bought. The juice that dripped everywhere when I tried to thank him.