by Elanna White. @Ewelannawhite.
UNION SQUARE, Manhattan - It was a beautiful Saturday afternoon in July. Union Square was bustling and flowers were blooming. That’s when the reports started of a majestic young straphanger who supposedly held a soft focus so strong that the daily canvassers wouldn’t even bother.
“It was honestly mystical, shared local resident Mable Fitzgerald, raising her voice over the Hare Krishna drum circle. “She just walked with so much…intention. It was like the beast from the live action Beauty and the Beast. Unnatural but beautiful. At first I thought she saw an old friend in the distance but then the expression shifted almost imperceptibly, like she was walking towards a lost love. She breezed right through the Triple Axel like it was nothing. That’s what we call it when you’ve got Greenpeace on the North corner, Bideawee colonizing both West and South corners, and UNICEF at the East, all trying to get donors at the same time."
Trevor French, cashier and driver of the local Weedworld truck, was also there on the scene.
“I once saw the Greenpeace guy talk to an old woman for 26 ½ minutes and he still couldn’t get her to sign,” noted French through a large puff of strawberry banana vape smoke. “This lady though... wow. I see her crossing the street, wind blowing through her hair, and she walks through every single canvasser. It was almost like she was one of those street mimes? I don’t know if it was just the indica but they moved slow…SLOWER than slow.”
Ethel Long, Viewpoints instructor and former ingénue, had some insight into Mr. French’s description.
“The phrase for it is liquid slow,” said the acting teacher, walking towards her next class and frequently checking her watch. “However, she wasn’t actually moving in liquid slow, but putting on the illusion that she was by way of focal point. It was quite impressive actually. It’s what we call a tableau in the theatre. But this woman’s soft focus was so visceral, it was almost as if she created the antithesis of kinesthetic response. The canvassers essentially just completely shut down.”
Later on in the afternoon, the young woman was spotted walking with a slightly different tempo into Under St. Marks. Her one woman production of Waiting for Godot plays through the end of the month.