A Piece with a Lousy Title.

The rain fell on the sidewalk, as he brushed his dark hair out of his eyes. It was too late for this, he should be asleep already. The falling rays of the moon cast shadows across the parking lot as he sighed and drew the raincoat closer. In the moonlight, I could dimly make out the familiar features though the darkness. Just across the street, as he passes, I feel compelled to mention something, --say hi to him, even. All I had to do was reach out, give him a tap on the shoulder, and say it.

I open my mouth, but I can’t bring myself to speak; I see a shadow of his former self, and I follow him with my gaze. He doesn’t seem to notice, just flick his dark hair out of his eyes and move on. I turn, and watch him go down the street, his prominent Indian features highlighted in the rain: the think, deep eyebrows, the laugh lines around his eyes; brown eyes with a certain deepness to it; short hair that seems to have grown out a tad carelessly, a mixture of jet black and a soft brown. He passes, and for a moment I just stop, and I notice his head turn to look at me, the glazed brown eyes looking into mine.

The people on the street move as the light turns green, rushing across with their umbrellas and black coats, so is the way with the city. I just stand there, and he doesn’t move; Just a blank, unfathomable stare at me, with a light twinkle of his eye dimly behind the rimmed glasses; Recognition.

I try and find words to mention to an old friend; friend possibly wasn’t the word; acquaintance? We had seen each other so many times, shared many pointless conversations: “Can I borrow your pen?”; “Got any paper to spare?”; “What’s the answer to #3?”.  Yet I felt compelled to ask him something so simple, so trivial, and so pointless; something that I probably should have asked awhile ago, when I had the chance. He was the random man on the street that you never think about; the occasional passerby, and you pass and feel compelled to ask what they are doing, or thinking, but yet never quite l lay your finger on what it is that makes you feel such about them.

I waited; possibly for him to leave; possibly say something. His eyes waited behind the fogged frames, as the rain continued to drip down on his honey-colored skin, and on my dark, pulled back hair. I shivered slightly in the cold, but I was afraid to move for thinking it would make the moment end; something would happen. I could have stood there for an eternity if I hadn’t been awoken from my thoughts by the cold. His gaze was ever the more unchanging; he must have not been anywhere in a hurry, or else he would have left.

He was waiting for me to say something; a sign that I was no longer timid and unoriginal as he had last seen me? I could prove that, for a moment, I was not that person. This was one chance that I had been given; a chance of what I have not the slightest idea. A chance to prove who I was now? A chance to prove who I had become?

Quivering, I parted my lips and decided my course of action swiftly over three words.
“Want some coffee?”

The simple words cut through the silence, and I could have sworn I saw his lips taken on an upward curve as he adjusted his glasses; he seemed to have no intention of leaving by the look in his eyes. –- a pause, a stop in his movements.
Parting his lips, breathing out the warmth into the cold night, he spoke with a clear, unmistakenable sharpness, “Sure.”

The dim lights of the coffee shop flickered, as if to imitate the lightning streaking across the sky. The warm glow of the place seemed to offer a sense of security; false, of course; this was downtown. Downtown Louisville wasn’t known for its gorgeous streets and lovely skyline. If anything, it was known for sensibility. Beauty had no place in between the large skyscrapers and towering businesses. There flickered a “Hot coffee!” sign through the dingy window; though someone would have doubted that the coffee be warm. It seemed to be a safe-haven for college students, sitting with their laptop on the table with their cappuccino: a math book being their companion. “Hell’s Accompaniment” hang in the grim, dimly lit doorway, flickering off and on in its dark red neon glow.

He sat across from me in a crammed booth in the back; most of the other tables were occupied by books, backpacks, and laptops. Realizing that this was the only table with two seats, the waiter shuffled us to the back. He had a lot on his hands, carrying about 4 different coffee mugs in his hand at once, sweat dripping from his forehead in the dim light. His darkened blonde hair seemed to glow red in the lighting, and for a moment I stopped, intrigued by the familiarity. Pointing to our table, muttering, “Be with you in a few minutes” and hurrying off, I wasn’t given the chance to ask.

I glanced around at the interior: it reflected the dingy, corner-store exterior, with dim, red lighting. We were the only two together in the room: the rest single businessmen and women; college students and professors. It was average, in the least, but it offered shelter from the rain.

       He drew back the hood of his jacket, letting his dark hair drip down his cheeks. His eyes; arching upwards, surveyed the room. He hadn’t spoken a single word since entering the shop; for that matter, neither had I. There was an unearthly silence between us, and the world seemed to echo it, a never ending, mocking silence around us. In that silence, a million things could have been said, --but the silence seemed to best speak them.

       The waiter was slowly making his way towards our table, menus in hand, as well as another tray with a half-dozen coffee mugs: cappuccino, frappuccino, they all looked the same to me.

“…Can I help you?” He asked, wiping away some of his hair that had fallen into his face in a hurried, nerved fashion. “--Cappuccino? Hot tea? Hot chocolate?”
I glanced over at my companion, who shrugged, still not saying a word. “…We’ll just take your regular coffee, two mugs. Nothing special.” I muttered in return, looking up. Again I was faced with that feeling of familiarity, but I couldn’t place my finger on it; a lost face in a picture frame. I paused, parting my lips to say something; he runs off, confronted with another arriving guest.

I glance across from me, and the thought occurred that he may not have remembered me at all. The flicker of emotion in his eyes could have been a reflection of the streetlights; streetlights that seemed to confine me to the city, always a glowing and hovering reminder of my disloyalty to the city of my birth. My eyes narrowed slightly at the thought, but I shook it off, looking up at the preoccupied and solid expression across from me.  

--There were so many things I wanted to ask him now, just little, unimportant things. I had known him for years, but yet it had seemed so trivial then; I realized that, though I had known him for several solid years, I didn’t know anything about him. Questions came to mind: “Where do you work?”, “How’s your family?”, “Are you married?”, “If so, how’s your wife?”, “Any children?”. I wanted to say these things, but the timid barrier that held me for years was drawing up again; thus leaving me in a frozen state, waiting for my coffee.

He looks up, the glasses lying softly on the end of his nose. His eyes peer at me from over the soft frame of the lens, and he doesn’t bother to adjust them. In the lens I see myself reflected, in a distorted form of my swirling pale skin, bathed in the red light of the shop. The gold strands grow all the brighter in the lighting, standing out from my normally dark locks. The occasional stray hair pokes out of my ponytail, again reminding me of my own imperfection and hurried image. But it doesn’t seem to matter at the time to me, because in the disorient and mild confusion, I find myself lost in the moment.

He makes a motion with his hands as if to speak, but there’s a certain stopping in his movements, almost as if he hesitated. It had to have been a trick of the light, for he took every spontaneous action as his own; in full. He didn’t ever stop to think, or regret; as far as I had remembered him. But, then again, I didn’t know him well, so it wasn’t my place to assume.

He tapped his fingers on the table again, making a rhythmic pattern that seemed to sort out his thoughts. Finding his sharp, deepening voice, speaking with the rhythm he had created with his fingers, he asked, “So how’s everything been going with you?”. There was a silent quiver in his voice almost; a hidden sense of nerves, doubt, but I may have very well imagined it. There was an odd, almost pained expression in his face, though his eyes had a certain steady and solid focus about them.

But how to answer such a tricky question? It sounded rhetorical in meaning; one of those questions you answer, “fine” to, and don’t tell the truth. Life could have been going horrid, yet, when asked that question, the automatic response is, “—Fine, how about you?”.