Jump

1 // cigarette smoke

A napkin slides along the bench guided by a hand. A red haired girl sits two seats along with one arm leaning over a magazine upon the wooden tabletop, the other twirling her straw in a strawberry milkshake. Her face is hidden behind a layer of curls and her legs are crossed under the table, her feet tapping the air.

The napkin crumpled with red lipstick stains on the edges, the writing upon it is in scratched black ink.

is the reason you're wearing sunglasses inside to pretend you can't read the sign that says you can't smoke in here? x

I snatch up the note with a sour grin. I grind my cigarette between my teeth, digging sprint in my coat pockets to write back. I find a blue ballpoint and scribble circles for it to begin working.

What makes you so worldly to correct my smoking habits? Plus I can't see a sign anywhere ;)

My black coffee steams in the cold weather coming through the open windows at the front of the store. The air numbs my fingertips wrapped around the porcelain mug leaning upon the window sill.  I hear the paper run along the bench toward me.

don't bother trying to stop smoking, the cancer will kill you soon enough anyways, maybe if you took off your ever so cool looking shades and looked around you'd notice things more often

She's struck a line through what she previously wrote and put these beneath it. I shake my head ever so slightly but her words make me chuckle. My hand fumbles and my mug of black coffee tilts slightly which spills upon the napkin. I incoherently mumble to myself and grab to new napkins. One to clean my mess with, the other to start the conversation a fresh.

Living a long life isn't a part of my plans for the future. 'Life is a great sunrise. I do not see why death should not be an even greater one.' - Nabokov

I use the napkin to wipe off the bottom of the coffee leaving a circular stain over my words.  I squash it into a ball and roll it to my right. Out of the corner of my eye I see her catch it and unfold it. She balls it back up and flicks it with her middle finger. I see her this time, her green eyes lit with a spark, her smile even lighter.

wouldn't pick you for the poetry kind, more of a silver screen person possibly, you look the type. pass the sugar?

I grab the small sugar shaker and twirl it in my right hand using my left to write in round cursive letters.

And I wouldn't pick you for the type who'd write napkins notes to strangers in cafés telling them they're going to die soon. Yet here we are, and just so you're aware sunshine, I write poetry for a living.

I roll the napkin around the sugar and slide it towards the girl. she sprinkles sugar in her milkshake and swirls it round. She sips the straw and begins to write back after finishing her drink. She flicks the note back once more.

is it too unoriginal  to ask for you to write me something? if I like it I may ask to read more, the decision is yours x

I tap my pen against the edge of the desk in consideration, taking a fresh napkin. I could write about the weather, or an overcast forest maybe even what I felt when I woke up this morning. It must be something to describe who I am, an introduction.

A frost bitten window, the ocher beneath warm.
Stained with rings of coffee, the snow outside a storm.
A writer and his pen, telling of his false fame.
For only one reason, so he can know her name.
- Ezra Knight

This time I fold the new paper into four and place the square on the chair next to hers. She smiles at me with a silent wave and takes the note in her hands and reads it over, her eyes darting from left to right. She folds the note back within it's crease lines and opens her jacket pocket to place it inside. She takes her last napkin and messily writes on both sides. As she struts to walk out the glass door, she swings it open with one hand on the handle and the other landing upon the table in front of me. I try to not react to sudden harsh blow onto the wood. Her black glove covers her fingers from the suffering consequences of the weather as she walks out the door, pulling her jacket tighter running into the snow.

Her name is Alex Sinclair and she loves your poetry, Ezra. Call her ♡

She'd put her phone number on the back.