The strangest things

Sitting in my apartment tonight and mulling over words and thoughts. They scramble my brain. They leave me feeling helpless.

A knock at the door pulls me from my thoughts.

I tip toe up to the peep hole and see a petite young girl was standing outside my door. My first reaction is that the person living downstairs is pissed because I'm still up.

I open the door a crack and peer into the brightly lit hallway. The girl standing front of me has tears in her big brown eyes and a cracked purple iPhone in her hand.

"Yes", I asked in a tentative voice.

She croaked out in a whisper, "Do you know the number of a taxi company," she looked down at her cracked phone and added, "...and a phone I could borrow?"

I invited her into the apartment and went into the other room to get my phone. Why was I opening the door at 1:30 in the morning to a total stranger? My childhood conditioning of paranoia incredibly entrenched in my brain was only superseded by my understanding of shitty situations. I remember being in a jam and asking strangers for help. It's not the easiest asking for help in the best of situations from people you know, and here she was asking me for help. Then she asked for a cigarette, I said sure as I was heading down myself. As we walked down the hallway she explained her predicament and the need for knocking on my door so late.

Her sister and sister's boyfriend live in the building, and wouldn't let her into the apartment. She said she could hear his phone inside the apartment and then it stopped, like it had been turned off.

I wondered if it was just ill fated luck that made her phone die at this critical time of her life. I waived that aside and told her it was no problem.

Then it occurred to me, how did she know I was up?

She explained that too. She saw my light on in through the peep hole and risked a knock.

We sat outside the building smoking, breathing in the smoke from my Belmont King size cigarette. I audibly prayed that she was at least close to legal age. She said she was nearly there, eighteen years old. I would've guessed 16 but she put up enough of a convincing story about going to college to pursue her dream to be a cosmologist. Then we sat in silence, with her occasionally saying thank you in whispers of speech.

The taxi pulled up and I extinguished my cigarette. I told her to knock, day or night, if she needed anything - no questions asked.

What a weird encounter with a random person.

But then, what is life without a bit of randomness.