FicWad

An: Little something that popped in my head (I might revise/extend It later). I hope you like it.  (And if anyone wants an explanation just email me and Id be happy to help, and your interpretations of the ending would be lovely as well. ) Hope you enjoy.

Coffee shop. Break time. I’m smiling. An idiot’s grin.

JAVA is the hippest coffee shop for the next three blocks. Hip of course meaning expensive.

We’re in the corner farthest away from the door, each clutching our 17 dollar cup of coffee, hoping to absorb some of its heat through the cheap Styrofoam. Little light reaches us from the yawning windows at the front of the shop, and that is how we like it.

We huddle as though we’ve something important to say. But I know better.

Pretty Bianca has invited us here to go over page layouts. Does pink border go well with Jennifer’s dress? Whose baby is important enough for the third page? What ‘sexy’ picture is better for our cover?

I’m disgusted.

As the rest of the group pours over the paper thin models, ribs probing through baked skin, my eyes wander, though there isn’t much to see. Standard to its breed, the Starbucks wannabe makes a feeble attempt at oozing a cozy quality. It achieves this to the regular customer. The cheery oak tables soak in the sunlight from the wide paned windows, the warm coffee scent wafting off of every surface, as the cashier flashing blinding white-white smiles at the customers and each other.

Pretty Bianca is talking in my ear. Her voice grating. I turn, knowing that a response is expected. I open my mouth once, and then close it, and look at the current portfolio, as if in concentration.

Dyed hair and fake bake glares up at me from the page, all nicely bundled into a microscopic bikini. From the edge of the paper I can see Pretty Bianca’s naturally dazzling golden hair.

She is hideous.

Looking from the page I smile at her, hoping for the white-white fakeness of the clerks. I nod my head and agree with her. To what it is I’m agreeing is no concern of mine.

Pretty Bianca smiles at me, her deep blue eyes lighting up her gorgeous face.

I’m wondering how those eyes would look after I bashed my fist into them.

Beside me Craig straightens. His feelings for Pretty Bianca are obvious, to her as well as everyone else. Craig confides in me. He thinks he is being covert.

Craig is amusing sometimes.

I lose interest quickly in these two, and go back to my survey of the slightly less dull room. There are few people here aside from our table. Across from us is a couple. At a glance I would consider them twins. Although you don’t commonly see brother and sister making out in front of the coffee shop. Well, perhaps they do, but no one has bothered to mention it to me yet. It would not be the first time.

The male leans over the girl and whispers something in her ear. She giggles appropriately.

I turn from the brother/sister/boyfriend/girlfriend. They are as mundane as the present company.

As my eyes whip about the room frantically I catch sight of a long oval mirror on the other side of the room, with a fake wood border. For the rustic look. I lock eyes with a familiar face. I grimace. So does the face. Flat grey eyes and glare back at me from a boring palette.

The sun does not do me justice.

Limp brown hair hangs in front of the face, months old highlights glisten from random angles, doing nothing to enhance the locks they rest upon. Dark glaring circles under the eyes. Circles similar to something you’d see on people you’ll find down dark alleyways, talking to themselves, their eyes full of fear, clearly under the influence of something.

A pleasant chirp of a bell sounds off.

Several people glance at the door, myself included.

My mouth pops open slightly. Not so much in surprise, but amusement. The man stands in the doorway, swaying a bit. His smell is noticeable even from across the room. Perched on his head is a ten gallon hat, and on his feet are cardboard tissue boxes.

He shuffles to the counter, boxes slithering on the wood floor. The entire room stares at him in horror, I am not the only one whose jaw has come unhinged, albeit for different reasons.

I close my eyes for a moment, listening to the snakey-sweet sound of the boxes.

The man has reached the counter, and he digs through his pockets for several seconds, finally retrieving a fistful of pennies from its depths. They are tossed on the counter, almost carefully. Just the right amount fall to the ground and roll into the shadowy corners of the shop. Moments afterwards you can still hear them turning, not quite settled on the polished floors.

The cashier is staring. She has no white-white grin for him. Only dazed silence.

The man lets a hacking cough into his hand and looks at it for a second. Then wipes a sticky-green glaze onto his pantleg.

He is beautiful.

The clerk doesn’t touch the pennies.

She is making him coffee, making quick work of it.

The coffee is shoved at him, the pristine girl making certain not to come into contact with this delicious creature that has graced her shop.

No one here is real.

They’re all so unaware. Not unlike I was, moments before.

The man, with his ten gallon hat, takes the lid of the top, throwing it to the ground. He overturns the brightly adorned cup over his face, spilling the blisteringly hot substance into his mouth, over his face, over his near spotlessly clean business suit, and finally it settles, into his makeshift shoes.

The cup is also slung to the floor, reunited with its lid.

Suddenly. Everything is silent. More so then before. The air around me freezes. Scared to even whisper. The man turns to me. And as his eyes catch mine I feel tears start to fall from them. His hand is out held.

My body stands, although my mind is hardly aware of it, still captivated by the very alive eyes, holding me in place. I feel my hands slipping each shoe of slowly, and place them carefully on the ground. No point in breaking this perfect silence.

He still stares.

Hand still offered.

I swing around fiercely to Pretty Bianca. Grabbing her face and kissing her hard. She is too shocked to struggle, arms hand uselessly at her sides. I feel as though she is going to make a sound, an attempt at protest. I squeeze my hands around her neck, killing any chance of her ruining it.

We are frozen like this. I am not sure the amount of time that passes. It feels like days. I’m sure it was seconds.

Pretty Bianca goes limp, and once my hands free her she falls. Dimpled cheeks make a sickly wet sound on the hardwood.

I grab the hand of the grimy stranger, that I feel I have known my entire life, and perhaps before that.

As we near the door I turn to look back on everything. And nothing all at once.

Costumers stare, slack jawed, as Bianca lays, a quiet mess on the floor.

Off hand I wonder if blood will stain wood floor.

Then I remember how little I care. Imaginary people are of no importance to me.

The stranger turns to me, and I to him. We both burst in uproarious laughter. We exit the poor excuse of a coffee shop, as I lick the cooling latte’ from his burned face.

Just outside a plastic bag whisper flutters in the wind, caught on a crack in the pavement. I snatch it from its current captor, and tie it around my foot, just at the ankle. My plastic sock trembles at the wake of my step. Swish-swishing as we skip down the next three blocks.

Loud-loud laughter trailing us all the way.

~