Coffee Talk

Nine

Before Angela realized it, it was Christmas Eve. The bookstore had closed early to give its employees the opportunity to return home and begin celebrating with their loved ones. To Angela, all it meant was a long walk home in the cold to an even colder apartment , leaving her alone to contemplate the life choices she had made up until that point, or rather, the choices that may have been made for her, as if she was no more than a puppet following along on pulled strings.

Between Delilah and Seth, perhaps that's all she was: a toy to be played with, a marionette to be strung along for a greater purpose... but what? To prove a point? Another person whose to be judged? No, she didn't want to be either of those.

And she didn't want to go home. Instead, she decided to walk the length of the city's main street before she reached the almost empty ice-skating rink at the center of town. There were only a few couples skating their laps, as if trying to get in some final quality time before the holiday madness fell upon them. Angela couldn't blame them.

The winter wind gusted through the square, and she hugged herself as she took a seat on what she realized was the same bench she and Seth had occupied the last time they were together, on their date. She wondered how it would have turned out if things had gone differently. If Delilah hadn't shown up, or if she hadn't asked Seth to come back to her apartment at all. Maybe she wouldn't be so alone—

No, she would always be alone.

"It's quite cold out for Christmas Eve, don't you think?"

Angela hadn't noticed the man sitting next to her a moment ago, but she had been so lost in her own thoughts it wouldn't have surprised her if ten people had tried talking to her between the bookstore and the skating rink. The man was bundled in a woolen trench coat with a plaid scarf wrapped around his neck and a small pair of wire-rimmed glasses on his nose. He was alone, but Angela made a quick sweep of the surrounding area to ensure he was, in fact, talking to her.

"I'm sorry, was this seat taken?"

"Oh, not at all," he responded with the lilt of a British accent. "In fact, you're right on time."

"For what?"

"For that."

The man pointed a gloved finger in the direction of the church across the square, and with what appeared to be a snap of his fingers, the evergreen tree standing tall before it was alit with the glow of hundreds of sparkling white lights.

Angela was in awe. She never remembered seeing such a display there before, but with the state she had been in lately, her tunnel vision focusing only on what she had to do rather than everything else happening in the world around her, it wouldn't have surprised her if it came and went without her giving it a second thought.

"It's my favorite part of the season," the man said as he watched the lights, their twinkling reflected in his glasses.

Angela had to agree. "It's beautiful."

The man turned to her with a sparkle in his eye that matched the lights on the tree. "Did you know that holiday lights are the symbol of the light, hope, and good in the world?"

"I can't say I did," Angela responded, not wanting to appear rude, but also not looking for a lesson.

"And the Christmas lights serve to remind us to provide light to others during the holiday season and throughout the rest of the year. Sometimes it's hard to remain on our path, and the light shows us the way, even in the darkest of times."

"And what if your life is all one big darkest time?"

"Then you need to surround yourself with more light." The man winked.