| |
COFFEE FOR ONE
––––––––
HE LOVED COMING HERE. The tether pulling at his soul seemed weaker when he crossed over, as though iron chains had been switched out for simple ropes. He knew it was all an illusion—that it was simply the distance—but he liked to pretend it was more. He enjoyed the feeling of freedom, even if feigned.
He pulled the collar of his coat up a little higher and dipped the brim of his hat down a little lower, sheltering himself from the winds of the Caribbean seaside. The act was automatic. If having lived most of his life this way, avoiding eyes and stealing away in shadows, had taught him one thing, it was this: the less of you people saw, the less of you they noticed, and given the current situation, going unnoticed proved ideal, to say the least. Even the woman at his favourite café barely registered him as he ordered his usual coffee and banana bread.
Over the years, he had grown to see it as a gift. The gift of invisibility, if ever there were such a thing. What he had yet to realise was that nothing in this world—in the vast expanse of the universe—was invisible. Eventually, all unnoticed things are noticed.
He sat down as he always did at one of the tables off in the far corner of the café and pulled out something that looked extraordinarily like a pocket watch—-but wasn’t. The waitress who brought his order acknowledged neither him nor the strange artefact. Some might say this was a charm of his, but he knew no charms were necessary, only precautionary. People saw only what made sense in their own world, and his presence in this one didn’t. Aside from two other patrons—a sleepy fisherman and a young professor entranced by her book—the place was empty. After a brief and unsatisfactory glance at its face, he placed the object into his pocket once more and moved for his breakfast.
The coffee smells better here, he thought with a deep inhale. He brought the mug to his lips. The taste wasn’t great, but that’s what enticed him. The metallic taste of the pot mixed with the organic taste of the beans. Unlike in his world, the people here used machines to do things. The result wasn’t perfect, but somehow the imperfections felt real. As he was about to take a bite of his banana bread, someone caught his eye.
She was a vision, more beautiful than she’d been in her painting. He paused, letting his eyes follow her up the street to the window beside him, hardly noticing her companion. She couldn’t see him; he was confident of that. For once his precaution proved well, though part of him wished he hadn’t been so diligent. Part of him wished to drop the enchantment, just long enough to meet her eyes, but he knew better. In his heart, the thin glass separating them felt as wide as the ocean beyond.
Their eyes met like opposing magnets. He shivered under her gaze. Somehow, she sensed his presence, her eyes shifted in and out of focus, trying to hold onto his vanishing image as though he were a trick of the light. Slowly, she lifted her hand to the glass. He mirrored her. Where their hands met, separated only by the windowpane, their energies danced and fogged it, collapsing what once felt like an ocean between them.
But then the tether pulled short.
He waited just long enough to see her seated—-a risk he knew he shouldn’t take but did anyway. The thing inside him was waking up. A second longer and there might have been trouble. He stood, taking a final sip of coffee before leaving behind most of his breakfast and half of his soul.
He stepped through the doorway, disappearing entirely from the world before his foot met the ground. The door shut, ringing a singular hanging bell as it closed; though, by the time anyone heard it, he was already gone, the world already behind him. The door once again keeping the outside cold a mere pane of glass away from the patrons inside.
