Stoplight
Every once in a while, I see something that just puts a smile on my face. It’s rare that I see something like that, however, at the intersection of Hollywood and Virgil. That’s a rather rundown part of LA, the seedier part of Los Feliz, and that particular intersection is a monster. Three major streets come together, and if you are not in the lane you want to be in, you are not going where you want to go. The people you see shuffling along the sidewalk in this area usually either move you to pity or to check that your door is locked.
I mean, it’s not hell, but it’s not pretty.
Today, however, I sat at the stoplight and stared up at the long, long, long red light, only to see that there was a weird black shape in the red of the light. It seemed at first that the light was perhaps cracked, or somehow damaged, because only part of the red shone through.
Then the black shape moved and I realized that a bird had settled down into the metal frame around the red light and was contentedly surveying the intersection from its cozy perch. I had to smile. No way could that bird realize he was in the one place that every eye was fixed, that he was not just in a stoplight, he was in the spotlight. He was the focus of our undivided attention.
And if he had known, would it have stroked his little birdie ego to know we were all smiling up at him? I bet it would. He’d be like the guy in the airport sitting under the clock. He doesn’t know why all the women keep glancing his way, but he knows they’re looking.
