Wednesday, August 27, 2014

About Today

You ever wonder what the other person across from you is thinking?


Coffee shop/diner type restaurant.  Sounds of only the restaurant.   Bob and Carol sit opposite each other.  They are married, have been for over a decade now.  Carol is distant. Doesn’t talk. Bob tries to make eye contact, but Carol tries to avoid it.  She fiddles with her coffee, the sugar, stirring it.  Bob watches her, yearning to say something, knowing anything he says will be wrong.  He looks at his coffee, he feels the cup, but he does not drink.  He leans back in his chair to think.  It looks like exasperation.  Carol looks at him with disdain.  A crash is heard in distant part of the restaurant.  Bob looks in that direction to see what happened, to avoid her glare.  She continues to look at him, her look turning from disdain to despair.  Bob turns back and their eyes meet for a brief moment.  Bob remembers her eyes, her body, her smell when they first met. (Carol leaves while this is happening) He wonders if he has thrown all of that away.  This moment is only interrupted when the waitress breaks his spell.  “Is she finished with her coffee?”  Bob as if awoken from a dream, looks at the waitress then over at the empty chair where Carol was sitting.  Her coffee half-drunk, chair pushed in.  Bob ponders this question for longer than anyone has a right to.

Bedroom, night.  Bob lies upright in bed.  Carol sleeps next to him.  He gazes at her.  She wakes, looks at him. They embrace.  All is forgiven.  “I love you. So much”, he says.  This admission is so powerful that his eyes swell with tears.  Carol doesn’t let go.  She kisses him on the cheek.


Bedroom.  Night.  The bedroom is darker.  Bob lies in bed, upright.  No one else is present.  Bob scans the room.  He turns out the solitary light on the nightstand. 

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