Husband and wife pushed and pulled the battered silver cart across the parking lot. Their faces were dark, lost among the riotous colors of their clothes.
Every hill, every crack on the asphalt, seemed too much for the ancient device, as its faded bottles of cleaning solutions rattled together in protest. The cart’s saucer-like wheels dug in against each new direction the couple tried. They brayed flat-sounding instructions to each other in their language: it could not be told if these words were angry or loving or what. Maybe they were neither: just communicating the essence of what had to be done to gain the next incline, or to traverse the next precipice.
In spite of the difficulty, the couple dealt tenderly with the old cart. They treated it like a beloved but reluctant family nag, and seemed at times to be pleading with it. For somewhere among the tiny soaps and toilet ribbons, the stale coffee packets and Dixie cups, dwelt the most precious thing they had.
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