iamzach.com

i looked across the table at her, she was looking down into her cup, i looked around the room instead. a lot of people sitting around, looking like they'd been there for hours, all men, all of them forgetting to take their coats off, or maybe cold...out through the windows, in the street, snow was falling, buses and cabs crawled slowly along, the flakes sticking to and slowly melting their way down windshields... i sat, moving my eyes but not my head, waiting for her to speak. i waited for what felt like a long time. i studied the creases in the skin covering my knuckles, the imperfections in the paint on the wall, the sparse, greasy looking facial hair on the kid behind the counter...my arms get cold and i reach behind me for my jacket, pull it on, look around again, and realise i fit right in now, with the other men, huddled down into their coats... she looks up and brushes away a strand of hair that had fallen in front of her eyes. she says: 'i guess i can understand.' 'you can?' 'yeah. i hope you weren't expecting more...' 'no, no. i wasn't even expecting that.' it all ground to a halt then. all my next moves had been countered before i could make them. it made no sense, and boy was i surprised. she guesses she can understand, when i sit here, nowhere even close to comprehending it. i almost start to laugh... 'what are you smirking at?' 'nothing. i was just thinking.' she was looking at me with the one-raised-eyebrow-'don't-push-me' look. i didn't know what to say to it. i just went on smirking. she picked up her cup, drank whatever was left in it, dropped it into the saucer, stood, and walked out. the door closed, and just then, all the other men sitting in that place looked at where she was sitting, and then at me. it was then that i realized we were all wearing the same smirk...