Gladys

Gladys sat by the apartment community pool scraping dead skin off of her legs with a beige loofah in the raw. She wore a blue shower cap and merely glanced at my presence before returning to her task. Her neglect of my gaze allowed me to observe her long cheeks sway with each stroke. The skin on her legs was raw and turning red. I expected to see blood as the minutes past, but it never came, and the scraping continued. Throughout my swim I checked on Gladys' progress. She switched to her other leg, then went to her arms, then came back to her legs. Occasionally she struck the loofah on the concrete to knock off any accumulated skin particles. When I took a break from splashing or emerged from underwater, the sounds that remained were scraping and knocking.

How I learned of her name came from a neighbor who kindly greeted the old woman. She replied in a soft voice that she was fine. They spoke of the weather and the temperature of the water. A sweet old woman, Gladys scraped and knocked her dead skin to the ground unabashed in the presence of others.