Coffee Shop

XIV

Edit 1: 24/05/2022
Edit 2: 28/02/2023

12th March 2021, 06:00
And here I stand, with a bouquet of fifty two white roses in my rough, dry hands, staring into the bleak graveyard of the church. The sweet smell of the blossoms wafted up my nostrils, a sense of strange calmness washing over me.

The clouds decided to have a break on this fine morning. No rain but warm sun, mixed with a stinging wind.

The wind blew blonde locks all over the place, obscuring my view.

It'd been weeks since I left the hospital. Sage and I talked while I was confined in there because I had nothing else to do. He knows my past and I know his. He has a pretty average life. His friends came, even though we don't know each other that well. Bless them.

When I left the hospital, I didn't attend any lectures. I lost all motivation. I also stopped going to that coffee shop. I just stay in my two roomed apartment and do an unhealthy amount of reading about countries and their different cultures.

I hadn't seen Sage since the twenty fifth of February, the day I was discharged. We don't have each others numbers, and we don't know where each other live.

He can't find me.

I bet he goes to the coffee shop and waits by that coffee shop window for me. Well, I hope he does... I sound rude, but I hope he still cares and waits for me to come.

Shaking my head, making Sage leave my thoughts, I stepped into the graveyard of fifty one graves. Slinking to the first grave, I lay a single white rose in the centre.

White. The semiotics of purity and innocence. All dead have innocence... even those who committed crimes, the innocence that they can no longer hurt anyone, not like any living human can.

Slowly, I made my way around the graveyard, finally reaching Alizerin's grave.

Before today, I had made a request for a bouquet of fifty two white roses and collected them yesterday evening. It's not been three months, but I had a close experience with death. I just felt like I needed to see them again.

Silence.

Sob.

Sob.

Why is there sobbing?

I followed the heart wrenching sound to the other side of the church where a female kneeled in front of a... grave. Another grave? A grave I haven't seen before...

Quietly, I stepped towards the woman and looked over her shoulder to see the engravings on the headstone.

Alessa Arius Carter
4th February 2002 - 14th February 2020
"Some of us think holding on
makes you strong, but sometimes
it's letting go."

What? She died last year, but I never saw her grave before... well it is isolated from all the other graves... but why didn't Adalson tell me about this grave?

There are now fifty two graves.

Dropping my head, I eyed the last rose. I was planning on giving this to Sage when I go to the coffee shop in the morning after weeks of not seeing him... but I guess he doesn't need one.

Gently, I moved around the grieving lady and placed the white rose with the other cluster of bouquets.

"Y-you knew Alessa?" The women asked me, turning to get a good look at my face, wondering if she recognised me.