a bird on bowery

It was a cool sun that shone down on Bowery. It was not nearly noon yet, though the streets were already crowded with delivery trucks and taxi cabs. Suddenly, the corner of Chloe's eye caught a red object barreling down towards Grand Street. She turned to look just in time to catch a woman in a red dress tumble off her bike, the contents of her bicycle basket spilling out on the road, chief among them a whole rotisserie chicken, which continued rolling, sans its clear plastic shell, with such force that it hopped the curb and stopped at Chloe's now-stopped feet.

Not sure what the proper social protocol would be in such a situation (that is, one that involves a bicycle accident, some produce, and a rotisserie chicken), she went to help the woman, who appeared to be in her mid-40s, with straight brown hair and a huge straw hat. But she had already gotten up, and so Chloe picked up the herbed bird carcass in her bare hands, its homey fragrance an alien amid the noise and chaos of the street.

She stood there as the woman walked her bike to the curb and sat down there, laboring an exasperated "thank you." Chloe sat down next to her in solidarity, her hands outstretched and dripping with chicken fat, as they both stared in silence into the middle of the street where the taxis and trucks made garbage of the woman's lettuce and Gouda.