Stein's Lament

.Cups.

He'd have to mind The Smoke...A young man. His dark brown eyes seemed to light up just that bit more as he watched  smoke trail from his mouth and slither up his nose in melancholy streams from the mirror above him. "Fuck", he mumbled under his breath as the server approached the table. Before she could even fully stop moving he started "Excuse me please doll, if my blunt-" intercepted by her gall: "No, you're fine sir. Can I get anything for you?" The young man sat there thinking for a while, about stars, and angels, about pianos and guitars, he seemed satisfied with: "Do you have ginger tea?" They did, and the server cleared his card for an additional black coffee before hurrying along. Alone with the smoke again; The young man couldn't help but feel underdressed for the occasion, the straps on his dark-ash overalls had fallen down his shoulders slightly, revealing the album cover to The Smiths' "The Queen Is Dead" collection, printed on his favorite green sweater. What time was it now anyway? The young man had all but extinguished his hope with the joint. He had thought...hoped it impossible for her to stoop so low, still, he remembered the circumstances, and as he looked down his sweater to finish it, there was a level of undeniable understanding that stared back at him from his abyssal cup. A knee-click later, the man was standing in his black bomber jacket, moving to push in his chai- 'DING', He had only looked up in time to catch the door closing. He was sure his soul had left with the resounding bell. She was wearing fucking cargo shorts. When his heart started back up, the young man sat back down, reaching for his lighter and kicking out the chair opposite him. "Well damn, tell me how you really feel." She took the seat, and inched closer slowly, as if his proximity would cost her (it had before), immediately folding her hands on the table. "Completely classless. No regard for your elbows whatsoever." "Fuck you." she only mouthed back, and he waved his hand lazily, "Bygones, Bygones." The young woman rolled her eyes and picked up her cup. "...This is hot." He couldn't waste an opportunity like this, not even a second. "Well no shit, did you want it cold?" "Don't worry about how I want it." She spoke into a sip. He waited patiently, but when she put her cup down, her hand went up. "You called?" "Of course. Ya know, despite yourself, you're a great writer, literary god even. I wouldn't be comfortable having known you or even known of you and we haven't dropped anything together." And he held his breath. To his clear surprise, there was little delay at all. "Ok, fine." and that lingered in the air for not even a moment. "How was your day?" "Oh please." but she made no effort to fill the following silence, and strangely enough, that didn't make him want to fill it. They just...sat, and stared for a while, but however swell that may have been, they both had lives, and schedules to get back to eventually, "I caught a flu a couple days ago, just now recovering. I've mostly been in the house cooking and writing, I'm sure you know." "I do." Jinx. "How was yours?" "Deadly, I haven't slept in 3 days, I'm trying to figure out what to do with this purple blob at the top of my canvas..." His ease grew by the moment as she continued to talk, having completely forgotten what he was so worried about in the first place. They went on like that for a period, hours slipping by as they spoke and bantered like high school kids on a Friday night, their best ones were Sundays. The young woman went to order herself another drink. The young man called her crazy as she reached into her pocket to confirm the purchase of a black coffee, but it really didn't matter at all. Realistically, neither of them had touched the stuff in a full year, and she wasn't a coffee person. Stopping as if something had occurred to her, the young woman suddenly made for her old cup in order to pass it to the server, at the same time, the young man was reaching across the table to do it for her. There was a not-so-subtle click, as their rings collided (the server had gotten there before both of them)...There was a not-so-lofty silence that so seemed to fill the entirety of the cafe. The young woman stopped for a while, eventually handing the server a 20 by mistake. "Ma'am-" "Tips..." she cut in before the server even really had a chance to start. The young man seemed to snap from his daze first. "...But ummm...yeah, I still want some of that stuff you wrote about me." She followed him out, almost seeming to hold his hand. "Yeah? Why?" "I've been in a small poetic slump since... I don't know, last December." Her eyes zipped to the would-be (should-be) empty spot on his left hand. The Band stared back at her a brilliant gold, Malachite ore sat on it's face in a 4-pointed star shape. "Mmm...Maybe, but it won't be free." and she deliberately chose not to elaborate. "Shoot." "When we were 16-" "My hips don't work like that anymore." "*sigh* When we were 16, you wrote me a story..." He waited, but that was it. "Which story luv? All I do is write stories." but for maybe the third time the night, she neglected to answer. The young woman simply sat and sipped; Through his round, metal framed glasses, the young man could almost swear she was batting her eyelashes, trick of the light?? He opened his mouth to ask again, but his only answer came in the form of a dramatic eyebrow raise. "OOOh, no that makes sense. It's porn, and you're a pervert." He really had no decorum sometimes. "You get one more and Imma start swingin'." But now it was his turn to be quiet. She followed the tilt of his head, His lighter clicked. "Phine." he mocked through pressed lips as he shook the flame away. Back to melancholy, the train came around and she boarded, parting with her third exhale as she surrendered the burning fuse. Eyes are the windows to the soul, they seem to share that common Idea, they seem to have shared it for a while now. Being here, being two halves of a grand and morbid soul...It made it all so easy to remember. Maybe they had both just needed a break from each other, maybe there are some wounds only time can heal. He started to think that maybe they could-, but the train of thought stopped suddenly. This was exactly how it had started the first time, talking, laughing, no expectations...but it turned out, that that was nothing short of a true disaster; Natural, Beautiful, but a disaster nonetheless, a boy had even died. The last time was hungry, and tactless, children toiling with a flame of which they could never understand the breadth, soon to be consumed by a blaze most never even get to see. The last time, had an overbearing warmth to it, one that stuck to you, pulling you deeper, and deeper, into the heart of its source; So much so, that it does injustice not to say: The last time... burned. There was no reason this had to be like that though, like the odorous, intoxicating swirls of last time; After all, Liquor is Liquor, and Coffee is Coffee.