blood & gunk

pourquoi pas

It was beginning to look a lot like Christmas. Everyone, excluding nobody, had started wearing red and could feel the festiveness in the cold air whipping around the city. If it wasn't for the trees, you couldn't tell which month it was. It might sound like it was a city heavily burdened with a surge of sadness, but it truly hadn't stopped raining since last year's October.

Down the street was a cafe run by an ex-army cook who loved flowers. It was evident in the bouquets situated on every and each table in the humble place and the large painting behind the counter of dancing roses. As it was always winter, customers would glance up almost spontaneously as the door swung open, naturally heralded by a blast of cold wind. It would be mere seconds before they would return to their conversations as the door closed behind the new entrant, the cold breeze long forgotten.

In the back sat a dazed and confused newly divorced Moneypenny and her beloved friend Adam with two fresh coffees and lasagne dishes.

'I think I'm glad we didn't get to the point of having kids,' she said after a long pause and a sip of coffee. She flickered her cigarette and massaged her temple, 'I mean we were getting there. We were too close to having kids I have doubts if I'm pregnant or not.'

Adam's sparse eyebrows furrowed lightly as he swallowed his lasagne carefully. 'Are you serious, Pope?'

She shrugged. 'I've taken tests, all negative – I'm just unsure because there's always a reason to worry. Pourquoi pas? Why not worry?'

'Why worry?' he leaned on the table with a tilt from his head. 'Leave it behind.'

She held him in her eyes for a moment before relaxing her shoulders and leaning backwards in her seat, sucking on her cigarette and looking away. Adam waited until he ate away his lasagne to light a cigarette and fixate his attention more properly on his friend.

A waiter took Pope and Adam's dishes away and cleared their ashtrays. Pope had a single flower in her hands. She twirled it lightly as she sank in comfortable silence. Adam didn't want to bother her with a past world's noise, but he desperately needed answers. Details. Content to feed on.

'How come you got that divorce anyway?' his arms were crossed over his chest and legs comfortably parted.

She sighed, putting the flower over her ear, and lit a new cigarette while nodding at their waiter for a coffee refill. 'His lawyer gave it to me. I spoke to him – you know Jeff – he told me that when Matty got the papers, he took the plastic file, filled it with weed, crossed his feet on the table, exactly on the papers, rolled a spliff and told Jeff to sign them for him. Jeff thinks he thought it was a joke.' Their waiter smiled softly at Pope as she gestured for her mug. 'And you know since he cared that much, I guessed that I could live without that. It would feel nice.' The warm scent of coffee engulfed Pope's senses as her mug went full with it again. 'And it actually does!'

Adam's eyebrows were slightly cocked – with disgust or dismay, he didn't know. It surely wasn't surprise - he'd always known Matty as an awful self-centred wanker. How Pope actually stayed with him for over five years was far beyond questionable.

'In a way, though,' he cleared his throat, 'you wouldn't imagine him as that kind of person.' Who was he kidding? He gave off all the signals of recklessness and bad news.

'In what impossible way wouldn't he be the asshole he is?' she scoffed, shaking her head afterwards and taking an angry drag from her cigarette while throwing the flower to the table. 'We both saw it coming, Adam.'

Adam pretended to be oblivious.

'I'm just happy I won't be dealing with that anymore,' she sighed softly at the window, gazing at people flocking down the street. Then that they were quiet – Pope dreaming of other places she could possibly belong to, Adam mathematically contemplating the music in Pope's mind – the chattering chefs could be heard from their table, joking and teasing and sometimes singing loudly out of tune.