unfinnished. ramblings.

She steps out of the rain and into the overheated coffee shop. She collapses her grey umbrella and leaves it in a bin next to the door. Shaking the remaining water drops off she walks over to the counter and orders a drink. She fumbles with the contents of her purse in search or her wallet, removing a book in the process. After finding a stray twenty at the bottom of her bag, she pays for her drink and moves to the side to wait. She plays with the damp pages of the book she now carries in her right hand. A worn copy of Candide purchased earlier that week at the used book store. She’s not sure why she chose this particular book, but she enjoys the fact that someone else’s fingers have turned the pages before her own.

Her plan was to spend the afternoon reading in a quiet corner of the café. Her real hope was that a stranger would take notice of her solitude and ask to join her. While waiting for her drink she sees a group of familiar faces huddled around some tables in the far left corner of the otherwise empty café. One of the girls at the table sees her too and beckons her over. Busted. She picks up her coffee, puts the book back into the disorganized mess that is her bag and heads over to their table.

She recognizes all the people at the table, but only knows a few of them. Adam sits at the head of the table next to an attractive girl she remembers meeting once at a party- or was it art history last semester? It doesn’t matter, she doesn’t remember her name, and I confident the ignorance is mutual. On his other side is the girl who called her to the table, Corey; a girl as androgynous as her name, something that she was very envious of. The rest are nameless to her at the moment, but if she tried, or cared, she could probably come up with something for each of them.

She takes a seat at the opposite end of the table and pulls out a cigarette. Only two left. Shit. A sign on the wall across from her says “No Smoking” but there is an ash tray on every table. Hypocrites. She struggles to light the end of her parliament with an almost empty lighter. She smiles to herself, remembering that this lighter does not belong to her. She pocketed the miniature orange bic after borrowing it from a man at a party the weekend before. He had drunkenly rambled on about something- a book. Now that she thinks of it, the book was Candide. Regardless, she liked how he spoke, his tongue weighed down by several glasses of what should imagined to be cheap bourbon. She decided to keep his lighter as a token of their hazy conversation, and he didn’t seem to notice when she failed to return it to him.

She takes a drag of the cigarette, pulls the smoke deep into her lungs, and just when she is about to cough, exhales smoothly into the air above her head. She picks up her coffee, takes a sip and burns her tongue. She doesn’t mind though, not yet at least. A burn on your tongue is really only annoying days later when you can still feel the numbness it leaves on your taste buds.

The mention of her name brings her back to the conversation. But only temporarily. While pretending to listen and offering the occasional, obligatory “mmhm” or “oh yea,” she forgets about the cigarette between her fingers and lets it burn down a ways before remember it is in her hand; a portion of the flaky soot falls to the table. She returns he attention to her drink, remember the scalding feeling it left in her mouth before she proceeds cautiously this time.

She finishes her cigarette and puts it out in the ashtray someone has moved over to her side of the table. Her drink has cooled now, but she is not even sure she wants to finish it. Eager to find somewhere to read her book and wait, she makes up what she thinks is an utterly transparent excuse about needing to go to the bank, or was it the post office? Either way, no one seems to notice her vagueness and they let her leave without protest. She puts her jacket back on, glances at the book in her bag, and heads to the door. When she goes to retrieve her umbrella she notices a yellow one in the bin as well. This one has a small wooden teddy bear in place of the normal plastic handle. They type of umbrella she remembers using as a child. Without thinking, she grabs the tiny wooden bear, leaving her grey one behind in the bin and quickly exits the café.

Once around the corner and out of view she opens the stolen umbrella and continues to walk. She is not sure where she is walking, but it is not back to her car, or anywhere near the direction of her home. She needs to find a new place to sit; a new place to drink, and read; a new place to wait.

She pauses on the corner and seeing a diner she has never been to before but passed a hundred times, she decides to cross the street. Before stepping into the crosswalk, she takes the crumpled pack of parliament lights from her bag and removes the last one. Struggling to keep a hold of the umbrella while simultaneously blocking the wind from the weak flame she creates with the pilfered lighter she gives up and sets the umbrella down for a moment. In that same moment, a car turns the corner too closely and too quickly, producing a splash the reaches the tips of the fingers cupped near her face and leaves her last cigarette damp and destroyed. Fuck.

Update
6-23-2011
i edited this a ton and submitted it to a seoul wtiters club on a dare. the theme was out of place and i thought this fit quite nicely. should be hilarious.