News Stand

I locked the door and went down to the newsstand. Schmidt sat in his tiny stand, balanced on a stool,
the stumps of his legs pointing to the side.

“Morning, Fraulein Vogel.” He touched his workman’s cap respectfully. I’d seen him almost every day since he opened the stand after returning from the Great War without his legs.

“Good morning, Schmidt.” I pulled four different newspapers from his selection and handed him a few pfennigs.

“It’ll be a fine day,” he said, dropping my coins into a metal can with a clink. “Just see if it isn’t.”

I nodded in return and hurried to my bus. Schmidt was convinced that every day he was not in a trench was a fine day.

Photo from www.touchephd.com/blog/category/general/page/2/ (no longer available online)