Sunday Post

She knocks on my door on a humid summer Sunday. Something about the way she speaks - I later realize it wasn’t the tone but the cadence - made me think she was selling something. She wasn’t. But in a way, she was. She was selling something no one wanted to admit they needed, or had ever even thought about wanting. Something we’ve all wished for, a wish heard by another unthinking - or maybe thinking, but without the painful perspective of life - child. Because she was a child, or at least young enough that some would call her such. She came holding a wish carried, continued, lost but then one day returned, She comes to my door to sell this. 
She knocks three times in quick succession, and then pauses for a moment before knocking again. I swing the door open, but before I have a chance to turn her away she begins to speak.
“Sorry I’m late, but there’s been such a backlog, you must understand, with your profession?” She pauses, waits for me to nod, and continues. “Well, you’ve just got to sign here, and then I’ve got full permission to give you… well, I can give you what you asked for.”
I can’t remember having asked for anything recently, but she leans in, like a child excited to tell a secret, and whispers in my ear. 
“But I- I didn’t ask for this!” I exclaim, taking a step back. The door starts to swing closed, without my aid propping it open. She slips a foot into the jam, and extends a clipboard out to me.
“It’s only what you wished for! No need to act so alarmed, we’ve got a strict confidentiality policy, so you just have to sign here and everything will be taken care of!” She smiles, and extends a tablet out to me. 
The gift that she was giving was what I had wished for, something that I had wished for years ago. And really, she was trying to sell what she seemed to see as a gift. I wonder if she will ever realize that. But I didn’t want what she offers anymore, and yet I still find myself reaching out, and taking the tablet from her hands.

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