Blue Glass

Alois

It had been ages since Lea had gone outside--like actually gone outside. 

Yes, she had physically been outside many times. She had gone grocery shopping. She had gone to work. She had gone for walks, and she had gone to read the news. But all those times, her vision had simply been one long tunnel, one that had the destination at the end of it and whose walls were lined with black fog. She had to get to the store, or the wine firm, or the newsstand, and then go home. She saw nothing and no one around her. 

But strangely enough, she couldn't remember the last time she had gone outside and actually paid attention to her surroundings. She couldn't remember the last time she had gone for a stroll in one of Vienna's many parks and public gardens and taken time to admire the many specimens of natural beauty around her. That was the one thing the war hadn't been able to sully about Austria in general--the public parks. An overall atmosphere of pessimism and gloominess hung over the entire city, but the only place where that black cloud lifted was within the colorful confines of the public parks, where the burbling fountains and brightly colored flowers had the ability to lift the spirits and soothe the soul--at least for a while. 

"Superiority in the air above the battlefields still belongs to our side," Svetlana had said to her today over breakfast, which, as usual, was a dull affair. Weak, watered down ersatz coffee and whatever pastries Svetlana could scrape together from their dwindling supply of potato flour, jazzed up with a bit of jam that, by some miracle, Lea had found in the cellar. 

"But for how long?" Lea had asked in a deadpan as she covered half of a piece of bread in jam. To her, the gelatinous ochre liquid suddenly looked like blood, and for a second she fought the urge to hurl it across the room. "The situation on the ground gets worse day by day, and that's where the main part of the war is fought. What does one or two victories in a dogfight matter against--" 

Svetlana had thrown her a sharp look, and Lea had immediately regretted saying that. 

To say something like that would essentially devalue the lives of all the men who had risked their lives and died fighting in aerial combat, and those who now still fought duels every day thousands of meters above the ground. To say that would essentially devalue Manfred's life. 

Lea thought about all this as she made her way down the path lined with trees in full bloom and rows of neatly manicured flower patches. It appeared that she was the only one in the park today--or maybe she had always been the only one there, but she just hadn't noticed. 

She sat down and took out her box of cigarettes and a lighter. The telltale whoosh as the end of it caught fire sounded eerily loud in the silence that surrounded Lea. She took such a long drag off of her cigarette that she started coughing until her eyes watered and she had to dab them dry again. 

A flash of movement to her right caught Lea's eye. For a moment, her blood ran cold, and her mind began to race. What if she was being followed? What if the police hadn't forgotten about her mother after all? 

A man in a rumpled walking suit eased himself down on the other side of the bench. Lea felt her whole body deflate as she let out the breath she didn't realize she had been holding. He looked around, as if trying to get his bearings, and then proceeded to pull a cigarette box from his pocket. Judging by the indents on the sides of the box, he had apparently clenched it in his fist one too many times. Lea watched as he took out a cigarette and placed it between his lips. From his other pocket he took out a lighter, and cupped his hand around the end of the cigarette as he brought the lighter up to it. 

He flicked the pin of the lighter once. There was the telltale clink of metal on metal, but no flame. The man swore under his breath. Lea took another long drag off of her cigarette, wincing as her already parched mouth grew even drier with the smoke, and blew the gray smoke out slowly, watching the man out of the corner of her eye. He frowned and tried again. Flick. Clink. Expletive. Flick. Clink. Expletive. Lea wasn't sure if she should laugh or cry at his incompetence. What sort of idiot goes out for a smoke with a faulty lighter?