Saturday, August 29, 2009
Le Café de nuit.
We who are the tenants of what has become known as the customer service industry are offered a unique perspective of a person's inner workings when viewed from across that countertop. Often it is a seemingly endless repetition of impersonal greetings and instructions, a mechanical algorithm. And there are these rare occasions where a person will instead show a deep honesty. One recent night, a finely dressed middle-aged woman comes in to receive some lattes from our store. She would drift a little to the side as she approached from the door, and when she had, her voice's volume rose and lowered unnaturally. She had the kind of eyes that a bottle of wine will gift a person. And she was exasperated as her husband waited outside, parked in a needlessly large SUV or something of the sort. Perhaps she could have used anything other than what she ordered, so I offered her a small pastry on the side. And, with what I hoped would sound a caressing jest, I said now don't share that with anyone. That treat is all your own. She swayed with her drink tray. Share, she said, as if I had taunted her for a retort--share with him? Twenty-five years with him. Can you even believe it. Her speech slowed so that the last was not even a question. My surprise made our eyes meet again before she turned to leave, and the sincerity in hers gave to me only a steady, defeated look of unfathomable despair.
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14 comments:
This is more like you, the way you sound, than most things I read by you. So, it should go without saying, this is writing I like very much.
do i smell a steamy affair brewing?
er, seriously though, this is quite sad. poor lady.
I suspect you already know this, but you write incredibly well.
Keep at it; this is imperative!
ps. A Monk On The Seashore, I adore this painting.
It is right beside me on the cover of a book I am reading, actually.
Wow, well, thank you for the compliment. It is very much appreciated. What is the book you're reading?
I knew I had been missing something. And here it is. You've always had it and it pleases me to know you are using your most marvelous gift.
Consider me touched.
That is a very warming thing to read, thank you. And you seem to be alluding to something past--have we known each other?
I would say for a short time our paths crossed, but alas, they brought us to very different places.
However--and please do keep your ego in check--you made quite an impression upon me and in the most sincere and non-threatening way I still follow you. Not literally, of course. I am just a very, very distant onlooker.
Hmm, but when was this, and why so brief? I usually try to be someone who keeps contact with those I've known.
With good reason, perhaps, we have not kept direct contact. I say brief because I'm not sure we ever really knew each other, or at the very least, understood what connected us. I still don't understand what draws me here.
I forget who it was that said something like once your energy meets with another they remain forever entangled, no matter how far apart the two bodies become. Some sort of scientific theory I'm sure.
I wonder what that good reason must have been, then, and still wonder what the occasion was that we had been acquainted so briefly. But, for the record, I see no reason why the occasion should not be reinstated.
Are you still wondering? Do I remind you of anyone?
I'm afraid that I am afraid to reveal myself and that alluding to the past was a mistake. Fear is a silly thing, isn't it?
Something tells me you may have a clue, but if you don't that's okay too.
I don't really know where that fear might be coming from, you know, but yes, I'm still wondering, and I haven't a clue.
Of course you wouldn't. But I do. We can start here.
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