The cafe was full of students today. In pairs or groups of three they cluster around tables and chat and laugh. Excluding those with laptops and deadlines. Like the guy opposite me with his black Fujitsu laptop and foreign-student accent. He has an espresso in which he puts two sugars and a bottle of coke. When the waitress comes with his espresso he asks for a glass and ice for his coke. Twice he leaves to smoke a packet-cigarette and stand in moody indifference in the cold. I think he’s running on stimulants. He sits opposite me purely out of necessity. When one of the tables next to the wall is free he ups and moves, the empty seat opposite unnoticed by me until a little while later, when the lack of body to fill it shocks me.
When I came in, I sat down next to the oddest situation. There were two tables set up against the wall, as usual, with two chairs for each so that the pattern went thus: Chair, table, chair, chair, table, chair. In the chair nearest to me and the chair furthest away two men are sitting, having a conversation over their two own tables and the two chairs between. Like two men who are allergic to each other they sit, 4-5 meters away from each other, and talk. They are obviously strangers, in conversation because of a freak observation or random event that linked them for a few minutes. But in my head the possible stories fold over each other like cards in a deck.
It’s a shame I didn’t get a sketch. I was sitting in totally the wrong position.
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