The Invisibles

The Invisibles

Horace stood in a corner of the airport terminal watching travelers hustling from gate to gate urgently trying to make their next flight. A young boy around the age of four looked up at him and smiled. The encounter quickly ended when his mother pulled on her son’s arm, attempting to hurry him along. She never acknowledged Horace standing there with his trash cart and cleaning tools. The mother and son had a plane to catch and no time to exchange pleasantries with a man holding a broom. However, she had time to look over the jewelry at the Duty-Free shop.

Horace was used to this kind of treatment. He had decided long ago that his job, along with his facial scars leftover from a childhood accident, made him invisible to the public. His uniform, gray shirt, and dark chino pants reinforced his invisibility. People would only speak to him if they needed something and then hurry on. The only conversations Horace had was with other janitors, and that usually consisted of, “How’s it going?”

Beatrice left her apartment every morning no matter what the weather and walked to the bus stop at the end of the street. At 6:40 every morning, Busy Bea, as her mother called her, boarded the city bus for her ride to work. The bus dropped her one block from the hospital where she worked in the laundry. On nice days, she took her breaks outside in the hospital courtyard. More often than not, friends and families of patients also used the space. Occasionally, a visitor would look her way, but no one ever spoke. Her hospital uniform, beige tunic, and brown pants reinforced the fact that she wasn’t part of the white coat and scrub-wearing hospital elite. Seeing her simply reminded them of what they went outside to forget about.

Beatrice hadn’t grown up isolated, on the contrary. She was the middle child of a family of six. Life has a path for each of us to follow, and her siblings all moved to other parts of the country. Her parents died in their early sixties, leaving her alone in the city she was born in. She had always been poor, so work, not socializing, took up all of her time. Being invisible was not a problem for her. She had no time for anything else.

Ironically, Bea and Horace lived in the same apartment building, but they rarely saw each other and never spoke when they did. They lead parallel lives, and like true parallels, they never intersected. That changed one fateful Saturday night in the neighborhood bodega. Both Invisibles were stocking up on food for the week when two armed men, thinking the store was empty, burst in, demanding money from the cashier. Hearing shouting coming from the front of the store, Bea and Horace headed in that direction to investigate.

Bea approached the checkout stand from the east while Horace appeared from the west. To the drug-fueled robbers, it looked like a pincer move by people trying to stop them and they opened fire before fleeing without a dime. Horace died immediately, while Beatrice hung on for several hours before passing away.

The robbery made the 6 o’clock news. The on-scene reporter talked about the increase in violent crime and the need for stronger gun laws, but never mentioned Horace or Bea by name, opting for, “Two shoppers were killed in the robbery attempt.”

The police eventually caught the robbers long after the Invisibles were buried. Horace had no living relatives and Beatrice’s siblings were all too poor to travel back for a funeral. They were each laid to rest in two pauper’s graves. Their landlord cleaned out both apartments and donated what he couldn’t use to charity.

Several months passed, and a young girl and her mother were shopping at the bodega. The girl looked at two pictures hanging on the wall behind the cashier.

“I know those two people, mama.”

“How do you know them, dear?”

“They came in to shop sometimes while we were here.”

“You must be mistaken. I don’t remember seeing them at all.”

“I’m not wrong, mama! You just needed to look at them.”