The Unhappy Man and the Immortal who was Looking for Death

05: Doubt and A Bunch of Other Characters

I smoked my third cigarette in a row that evening. The sudden conversation I had with Freigen earlier had left me feeling raw, empty and vulnerable. For the first time I feel that there's something hollow in my chest. I couldn't quite describe it, but it's like missing a piece, like there is a huge invisible hole sitting in place of what should be my heart.

And I have been patching and covering it with all sort of things until earlier when I suddenly came clean and talk about it and it's like I, by myself, using my two hands, tore down the barrier and the cover ups and now the hole is there again, sitting down staring at me.

Damn, if only I didn't talk about it with that damned bard, if only he didn't decide to pry into it, I would have had...

But somehow I feel so light.

The cigarette smoke danced in front of my eyes as I breathed them out. The sun was setting as I sat here in this café, with a cup of black coffee on my table and a plate of half eaten waffle next to it. I leant back, thoughtlessly tapped my cigarette on the ashtray and kept on staring at the passer byes; men with their coat, dull coloured and wrinkled, their tie hanging loosely from their neck then to the back of their vest, women with their long skirt and wide flowery hats, their nose stuck high up in the air.

I was suddenly reminded of my wife. She said she was learning how to make coffees. What on earth was she thinking about? I turned my attention inside to the counter in which a young man was busy brewing coffee and was making waffle at the same time. He kept on glancing at the stove in which the coffee was boiling and then to the shop floor where customers were waiting on their table with their face hidden behind the newspaper. I imagine my wife working behind the counter like that. It's not hard since I have been seeing her busy in the kitchen for our years of marriage. But to imagine her busy serving customer in a small place with her name on the window, flowerpots and little porcelain dolls on the sill and books on the corner right next to a set of wooden table and chairs, was it exactly the same image she was seeing in her future?

My eyes were fixated on the young barista, now ringing up a small bell and told the waitress to have the coffee and bread delivered. The order apparently belonged to two young men in the middle of a heated debate with a thick book between them. The barista was, how should I put it, he seemed like an ordinary young man in his thirty. Clean shaved, a checkered beret hat perched on his head atop a thin, neatly combined hair. His white shirt was tucked neatly behind his apron, the collar, stiffened, wrapping his neck tightly like some sort of a cuff. The way he dressed made him look clean and crisp, but nothing out of the ordinary.

I looked at him and burrowed my brows. Women weren't allowed to do bookkeeping, yet alone doing business. The law allowed women to work part-time as server or nurses with very little cash, but they weren't allowed to keep the money in the bank under their name. Their father would govern her money if she wasn't married, or her husband, if married. So why would my wife went through all the trouble to learn the art of coffee if she couldn't even open up her own business or do anything about it?

She wouldn't need it either if she works as waitress, which she had expressed her interest in but I didn't allow her to. I hate seeing her running to and forth in a café full of men and women smoking cigars, men who care about nothing but their money, and immoral women who care about nothing but their hats. Who knows some of them will start flirting at her, throwing winks and kisses and all those disgusting gestures? Who knows some of those women would start looking down at her and assault her with insults?

I was too busy staring at the décor behind the coffee counter I didn't realize my cigarette was burning up to my fingers. I cursed as the fire touched my skin and the cigarette flew to the floor. It landed next to my feet, the ashes trailed along and stained my shoes.