Feb 10, 2009

I am finding things I wrote a while ago, all fiction. I am posting bits and pieces of it.


I was sitting there, sipping my coffee like every Tuesday night when the door opened with it's uniform jangle. For some reason, this time I looked up and there she was. She swept into the room upon the heels of the wind, trailing the scent of lilies. The exquisite creature who's name, at this time, was a secret I longed to be privy to. I knew nothing about here. How could I? I had only just glimpsed her face. I flipped the page in my Organic Chemistry and pretended to study, all the while gazing at her bewitching smile. If all eyes in the room where glued to this beauty, I knew not, as I could not tear mine from her.

She ordered a French soda and strode with graceful confidence to the table adjacent to mine. She looked up at me and flashed a smile. How I did not melt I cannot tell you, but somehow I smiled back. Setting her beverage down, she pulled a sketch pad and random writing utensils onto her table. Ah, so clear is my memory that I recall every detail. The grass stain at the ankle of her pink pin-striped khakis, the slight stain of green ink on her right hand. The gold fountain pen she next pulled out of her bag explained this, as she used it to make a rough sketch. Lilies, I observed. Why one would use a fountain pen for to sketch, I do not know and I cannot say, but that may simply have been a preference.

Realizing I was staring, I turned back to my studying. The more I read, the less I took in. I must have read the same page four times. It was all I could never do to keep her enchanting image out of my mind. Her soft lips and every strand of her perfect, shimmering, cinnamon hair was imprinted in my memory. I found myself rubbing my face, as I do when I am in deep thought. I run my fingers down my goatee in that "conjuring evil plans" sort of way. My fingers make it up to my cheek bone and my right hand lies flat on the left side of my face and I rub slowly, but with pressure, up and down. I realized this and placed my hand on the table. I looked up and caught the eye of the barista, who raised and eyebrow at me before averting his gaze to my left. So, he was taking the time to drink in the beauty that graced the room as well... I picked up my breve and took a rather large sip, nearly spilling it down my front. I wiped my face and goatee off with a napkin and looked towards the adjacent table again.

With polished fingers and a manicured hand, she was bringing the flowers to life. Or death, perhaps. The image was of a broken vase and lilies strewn about the ground. There was a stand just to the right of the disarray on the ground. It was of intricate design with a pool of water on the top surface that dripped slowly to the ground. Bringing color to the portrait, I observed what was once an arrangement of pink and stargazer lilies in a clear glass vase.

Flipping the page, she make larger, close up rough sketches of lilies and alstroemeria with a pencil. She was fairly talented. I wondered if she was an art student. Possibly she was stuck in a job she hated and this sketching in the coffee shop was her time to unwind and let her mind run free. I wondered if she lived with her boyfriend. Did she have a boyfriend? Was she attached? Did she live downtown? She was probably very metropolitan. Was she pleased where she was going with her life? Did she know the affect she had on people? On me?

I was lost in my thoughts for sometime when she snapped her sketchbook close. The utensils and book disappeared into her a messenger bag.

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