- Forty.Two -

A Meeting

LATER

Like the gross brown ooze that is stale coffee that was also bad when it was warm and hot and supposed to be delicious. “The best things in life are free,” “Expensive does not necessarily mean good, nor does cheap necessarily mean bad,” “Simplicity is the best policy.” Sometimes the best things in life are in fact free, but why are you telling yourself these cliched handouts. Do you really mean to believe that you do not need expensive things because they are not necessarily better than cheap things? Are you simply unable to afford expensive things, and therefore repeat the rote verbiage passed down from failed generation after generation in order to cope with your own insignificance, ineptitude, ineffectualness? Do you reward your ego with the nonsensical cliches even though you have done nothing to deserve the reward that is feeling as though what you have accomplished means something, ought to mean something, even if what you’ve accomplished is nothing?

His blue track suit carried him just far enough to know that he had failed, come up short, did not succeed, nor win the race. Try as he might but its like trying to sprint in a dream. The world stands still as he flails and gropes for his limbs to move, orderly, effectively, in the way they need to in order to run. Winning for him means very little when considering the lengths he goes to in order to remain unknown, invisible, nonexistent. He remembers a time when winning meant something. He remembers a time when what he knows now could not have ever been discovered. When he remembers those times he immediately wonders how anyone survives life at all. Life wants you dead, he reminds himself as he shakes off the stiffening of his muscles. The memory of her gnaws at him ceaselessly. There’s no special magic to life, he explains to his friends, to be alive simply means that you’re not dead, but how can you possibly know that you’re dead if you’ve never been alive, and how can you possibly know that you’re alive if you’ve never died?

Despite his esoteric nature, his friends are numerous and plenty. A socialite, he would rather eat with a stranger than eat alone. People constantly probe him about his wonderings, musings, thoughts on the existential, and one hundred percent of the time, he lies, not to himself, of course, but to all of these vacant beings with whom he must interact. He does not loathe the social essence of his life nor does he loathe the company he keeps. Instead, the strategy behind the lies revolves around his unwillingness to share the oddity that is his life. No matter what he does today, he knows that none of it will matter tomorrow. And that everything he does today will greatly affect his tomorrow. This then means for him, he finds himself stuck within this vacuum space of action and inaction. Frozen in the chilly blast of predictability unfolded. Most wonder at his “let’s suck today’s dick” attitude on one hand while simultaneously, forthrightly cautioning that everything a person will know he already knows on the other.

He continuously, pathetically thought that someday he would somehow just wake up and feel better, be motivated to become something great. What’s the use, he conceded, what’s the point. The pressure, the raw combustive power of…of knowing your true capabilities, capacities, and yet, accepting the inability to reach that place that is the essence of you, or worse, the unwillingness. At some point he decided that what matters now in this moment as he steams more fucking milk for more fucking lattes and wonders why lattes when coffee is the same thing!, that the unfairness of life is more about the unfairness of time. Why now? Why not now? That moment, then, meant that he had to leave. He cannot leave. He must not stay. If the ultimate ruler be time, then how can he possibly live a life of excess, excuse, and extrapolation. So he stayed put, at least for the moment in time that the thought first occurred to him.

Later, on his way to meet a friend for a hot dinner during this cold season, he saw her. For a blink, she sparked like a camera’s flash just down the street from where he stood. Nighttime, he slowly rushed toward where she had been and there to his right, inside the window she was standing at the counter of the coffee shop he had just left. Calmly, he peered through the window, tried not to stare. Pondering his options to either go in or perhaps try to come back later, she was walking toward him, well, toward the exit door of the shop. Frozen, he turned over his right shoulder as if walking in that direction, slowly, paced. The door’s overhang bell clanked, she held her to-go cup with both hands firmly grasping its warmth through the cold, winter air, bundled from head to toe in an oversized, plush hat with just her face peering through the layers of protective outerwear, stood for a moment outside the shop, breathed into the fresh, crisp air, turned left down the street heading the direction he actually needed to go. A moment later, he turned to see where she was going. A few steps ahead of him she walked along cautiously, downcast eyes, shrugged shoulders, paused for a moment on the sidewalk, mid-step. Halted, he slowed to a crawl but dared not stop. She looked as if tempted to turn over her shoulder to see who followed. Then she continued walking. He decided he would follow her for a few more steps, but then she began to fade. Slowly becoming invisible, he stopped and watched her disappearance unfold as he recognized what was happening. Frustrated he kicked the formed snowbank from the road’s plow that was now pushed up partially onto the sidewalk. Tempted to scream out in sheer outrage, he shook his head, let out a pssht instead, and violently turned back away from the direction of the restaurant and ran into the cold, dark night.

THEN

Chairs stiff, air hot and thick, the faces gloomy and dank in the overcrowded waiting area. On the verge of a profuse sweat, face aglow, she stands, patiently waits. In the far corner, affixed to the ceiling the oscillating fan blows dust encrusted air across the space. Don’t think about it, she calmly says to herself. Then, the all-to-familiar hopeful ring, “Ding Dong,” fills the room as all bowed heads look up to the yellowed plastic box that reads, “NOW SERVING 052.” Everyone knows what number is in their hands, and yet, in hope, by some magic, they all think that maybe their number has been called out of turn for some reason. Even she looks down, somberly reads the “107” on her ticket, lets out a sigh, places the ticket back into the pocket of her now open button-down sweater. An old man shuffles his things, slowly attempts to make his way to the counter. A young, blonde, curled and coiffed, hefty woman rushes up to the counter, points at her ticket as the clerk motions for her to wait. Obstinately, the woman, dressed in the sort of wealth that signifies the entitled position she now takes by cutting the line, although she mustn’t be glittering rich if she herself must do such chores. Loud, southern, the woman demands the clerk to, “Kindly just give me the forms that I need in order to complete this order requested by the company. Now. Please. Ma’am.” The entire waiting area listens to the southern, entitlement of the woman as the elderly man finally approaches the counter. “You need to step aside and wait your turn. Your number has not been called,” the clerk reproaches the woman and turns her attention to the man. A little scuffling, the woman reaches over the counter to grab what looks like a piece of paper, and then the clerk yells, “Help!” Two men appear from a back room unseen by the waiting customers, exit the behind-the-counter area through the code pad door on the right wall of the behind-the-counter area, reach the woman, grab her arms, and gently remove her from the premise. The clerk grabs the ticket in the woman’s hand saying, “Kindly take a ticket upon re-entrance into this office. Please.”

She witnessed it all, was amused and amazed, then suddenly realizes that that woman will most likely not be serviced today as she holds number “107,” the line behind her has grown at least by another twenty people and the office has already closed the doors to new arrivals needing a numbered ticket. She smiles and remembers that that woman sat in the front row of stiff chairs when she pulled her ticket from the machine upon her own arrival. A little snicker, love that, she thinks to herself, satisfied. Happy, she closes her eyes for a moment knowing that her number will not be called anytime soon. Moments later she hears the familiar “Ding Dong,” opens her eyes, sees that she lays comfortably on a soft couch. “Ding Dong,” she hears again. Sitting up now, she pulls at the back of the couch to look around, behind her. She sees a beautiful, stained-glass door through an even more beautiful entry way and the outline of a person standing outside. “Ding Dong.”

Groggy, foggy, she peels herself from the floor as a cat climbs down from the top of a bookcase. She stops, turns, looks at the cat and says hello. A luxurious looking smallish domestic with all the markings of a seal-point Siamese, the cat rubs itself on her ankles then trots off up a pathway built into the right wall of the foyer to a little shelf built above the front door. The front door sits centered within the entryway, nested between two large panes of glass, from the outside, the house must look as if it is made of glass, since above the door also rests a large semi-circle glass window. Perched, the cat peers through the window at the top of the visitor’s head. Coming, she gently speaks to the waiting person outside. As she reaches for the door handle, the door swings open and there stands a man, hot, aglow in a bubble-like film the color red. He looks at her, mouths something inaudible and unknowable. Panicked, she shakes her head and tries to speak. Calmly, he motions apologetically. She steps back. Looking at the cat still perched on its shelf, she wonders why now, how now? She motions for him to stay back but also invites him in slowly, the red begins to fade as she leads him toward the kitchen. She motions for him to sit in the dining room while she goes to the kitchen to put on some water. Shocked and slightly amused, she peers at him over her shoulder. Facing the stove again she smiles a little smile as he does the same. Then, as she walks toward the dining room, she carefully sets down the tray of teacups and cookies then walks back to the kitchen, keeping an eye on him through the kitchen’s entryway. He moves toward the tray and pours tea into both cups, picks up one cup along with a tiny plate of cookies and sits back to his seat at the far end of the dining table. Once settled in, she comes out of the kitchen and sits at the opposite end of the table and begins to sip her tea. For who knows how long, each sits staring at the other, sipping tea, nibbling cookies, silent.

Suddenly, another “Ding Dong” at the door and the man gestures that he will get it and that she ought to stay. She obeys, barely wondering who the visitor could be this time, glances into her tea as a woman gently nudges her shoulder saying, “Ma’am, do you have number 107? The bell rang for 107 and no one has gone up to the counter.” She pulls the ticket out of her sweater pocket, looks down, reads “107” nods to the lady, thanks her and walks up to the counter.

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