Table 5
by Sara Clark
Genre: Drama
Swearwords: None.
Description: A woman hoping to meet someone in a café watches the world pass by.
Swearwords: None.
Description: A woman hoping to meet someone in a café watches the world pass by.
She is pretending to read a book when her Americano arrives, and as he places it on the table she doesn’t look up. Instead, she studies the cup as it shakes on the table. The hot disc of coffee spins inside its curved white china palm, leaving an opaque halo of crèma clinging to its rim. She puts out her hand, and glances out of the window. Her heart is a knot in her gullet as she picks up her spoon, realising he might be here any minute. A tumult of silver vapours streams from the coffee’s surface, vanishing into subtle filaments of mist. She blows them into the anonymity of air, surprised when they reappear. It is difficult for her to look up, and she can hear the blood move through her brain as she touches the cup with her fingertip. The coffee is vibrant with heat, and she dips the grey-veined spoon into the copper sugar bowl, teasing the crystals up the rim. The inside of the sugar bowl shimmers a dull fish-scale silver in the midday light, and she scrapes away the caramel coloured sugar, watching the crystals fall. But she is not watching. Her cheeks burn, and she is barely breathing, for he will be here any moment, and the meeting will be their first.
She casts a glance over her shoulder at the window at the back of the café, and sees an elevated garden, gleaming gold and green above nets which shine a supernatural white. A single rose is growing in the grass, a rose so impossibly pink she almost believes she might be dreaming.
Her lips, her eyes, her hair, her face, her clothes. All immaculate, all carefully tended to. Still, he has not arrived. She stirs the sugar into the coffee, and a thousand tiny bubbles twirl in circles on the dark and perfect mirror of its surface, continents of froth rippling into clouds as the cup shudders from her touch, galaxies dissolving into stars, which vanish forever into a night sky viewed through an obsidian lens. She picks the book back up, but the words tremble on the page like lines of ants – menacing and unintelligible. She feels a sudden chill, and the door sings on its hinges. A man enters, but it isn’t him. He takes a seat behind her and opens up a newspaper.
She has chosen a window seat, and beyond the gold reflections of her hands, she can see a distant river. All around that river, buildings frame an endless white sky into whose silver depths the daisies in the window-box have gazed for hours, barely moving, seeing everything. A man on a bike whizzes down the street, and up ahead, over the river which runs beyond the railings, people can be seen through the glass of another café window. There is a bridge across from the café, and as people pass, they shimmer in its glass panes. Shadows and reflections overlap, ghosts in a kaleidoscope, touching one another without knowing. Beyond them still, the far-off reflections of buildings from whose black windows some face perhaps peers out – but none of the phantoms’ faces are his.
Her coffee is becoming cold, and the golden halo of froth on the rim is solidifying. The excitement is subsiding in her now, its deep, delicious ache is laced with melancholy. She hears the rustle of the man’s paper as he folds it up, and as she peers into her cup, a dark crescent of shadow eclipses its contents. Over the counter, the barista is working a silver machine, and a glittering mist of steam hisses up from it, rasping and sibilant. She takes a sip of the lukewarm drink, the bittersweet mixture of coffee and sugar settling on her palette with the grace of a kitten whose small claws prickle pleasantly against the skin. She looks into the cup again. The oils of the coffee have become gleaming continents of platinum and russet. She turns the cup, but the world, with its leaden sheen, stays still, and she stirs it until strange new shapes settle in its deeply glittering centre.
Perhaps he is lost, she says to herself. Perhaps he has gone beyond that distant bridge across the river… She holds the cup of coffee to the light, until the far-off buildings fill it to the rim, until the birds soar and the sun rises and the sky itself drifts on the chrome patina of its surface. To drink it would be to drink in everything, but she does not drink. Instead, she sits, and waits for him to come.
She casts a glance over her shoulder at the window at the back of the café, and sees an elevated garden, gleaming gold and green above nets which shine a supernatural white. A single rose is growing in the grass, a rose so impossibly pink she almost believes she might be dreaming.
Her lips, her eyes, her hair, her face, her clothes. All immaculate, all carefully tended to. Still, he has not arrived. She stirs the sugar into the coffee, and a thousand tiny bubbles twirl in circles on the dark and perfect mirror of its surface, continents of froth rippling into clouds as the cup shudders from her touch, galaxies dissolving into stars, which vanish forever into a night sky viewed through an obsidian lens. She picks the book back up, but the words tremble on the page like lines of ants – menacing and unintelligible. She feels a sudden chill, and the door sings on its hinges. A man enters, but it isn’t him. He takes a seat behind her and opens up a newspaper.
She has chosen a window seat, and beyond the gold reflections of her hands, she can see a distant river. All around that river, buildings frame an endless white sky into whose silver depths the daisies in the window-box have gazed for hours, barely moving, seeing everything. A man on a bike whizzes down the street, and up ahead, over the river which runs beyond the railings, people can be seen through the glass of another café window. There is a bridge across from the café, and as people pass, they shimmer in its glass panes. Shadows and reflections overlap, ghosts in a kaleidoscope, touching one another without knowing. Beyond them still, the far-off reflections of buildings from whose black windows some face perhaps peers out – but none of the phantoms’ faces are his.
Her coffee is becoming cold, and the golden halo of froth on the rim is solidifying. The excitement is subsiding in her now, its deep, delicious ache is laced with melancholy. She hears the rustle of the man’s paper as he folds it up, and as she peers into her cup, a dark crescent of shadow eclipses its contents. Over the counter, the barista is working a silver machine, and a glittering mist of steam hisses up from it, rasping and sibilant. She takes a sip of the lukewarm drink, the bittersweet mixture of coffee and sugar settling on her palette with the grace of a kitten whose small claws prickle pleasantly against the skin. She looks into the cup again. The oils of the coffee have become gleaming continents of platinum and russet. She turns the cup, but the world, with its leaden sheen, stays still, and she stirs it until strange new shapes settle in its deeply glittering centre.
Perhaps he is lost, she says to herself. Perhaps he has gone beyond that distant bridge across the river… She holds the cup of coffee to the light, until the far-off buildings fill it to the rim, until the birds soar and the sun rises and the sky itself drifts on the chrome patina of its surface. To drink it would be to drink in everything, but she does not drink. Instead, she sits, and waits for him to come.
About the Author
Sara Clark was recently appointed the writer in residence at The Damascus Drum Café in Hawick, The Scottish Borders. Table 5 is the first of a series of stories written and set in the café as part of her residency. Sara is also co-editor of The Eildon Tree Literary Magazine and her debut novel, Summer's Lease, is out now on Amazon.