A Curious Pair

A couple weeks ago when I walked into the grocery store, there was a guy standing in the entryway next to the shopping baskets. He was young, maybe even in his late teens, with a huge backpack on his back, so huge it bulged out comically. It looked like it weighed about as much as he did. He had three or four other bags around his feet. He was standing with his feet braced apart, gazing off into the middle distance. The most striking thing about him was that he had a mask over his eyes, a strip of black cloth with holes cut out for the eyes, tied at the back of his head. He was like a cartoon robber. I made a wide circuit around him, but he was just standing there, not doing anything, and he was still just standing there when I left.

Then a few days ago I walked into the same store and he was there again, in the same place, with the same giant bag. This time, as I left he was walking out ahead of me, and there was a girl with him about his age. She was wearing a miniskirt over leggings and was loaded down with bags too. They shambled off together. Suddenly I wondered if they were runaways, hiding out together. He guards the bags while she does the shopping. Then they go back to their camp - are they sleeping in the park? or at the rundown house where no one lives, halfway down the block? Are they hiding from her parents? I would have liked to say something, find out their story and help them if I could, but there was something proud and self-sufficient about the pair, about the tone of her voice as she talked to him (though I wasn't close enough to hear what she said) and I was afraid to approach them. Now I wonder if I'll see them again.