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- Joined
- Jan 20, 2009
It was as though nothing would have ever mattered if she hadn't met her mother for coffee. This was where she was validated, this is where she felt that anything she had ever done had some meaning. A fraction of a moment where that piercing, fixed, unflinching stare from those dull brown eyes that was anything besides indifferent was all she wanted. It had been all she had wanted since the stroke. Her hands rattled a cup against the saucer as she lifted it. "Who has saucers under cups for coffee?" She asked herself several times before she finally got the fit back into the center. It was either the cups were too large, or the saucers too small, a purposefully game of equal cruelty and frivolity in its exercise. This was not how it was to go, she was to sit down, look across the table and say these words with confidence.
If her mother had been a hateful bitch these last few years, this would be easier. These things wouldn't have to be so hard, her hands wouldn't tremble and twist within themselves like the knot forming in her mind to find these words. How could she say it to that impassive glance? It would have been a tremendous relief to simply feel a stinging strike to her cheek when she had begun, a tender caress of a hot glob of phlegm, or the refrain of harsh words cursing her name, and being. It was none of that, simply acceptance before those thin, still, almost dead lips parted across the table. "Its time for me to move on isn't it?" The voice was frail, but steady. Her mind reeled at the idea of potentially making the wrong choice, but she couldn't afford to make this draw out any further. "Yes" Her voice was stronger, but trembling, marked by a hesitation in it. The hesitation you feel when going into the company of strangers, or walking into a dark room with no knowledge of a light switch. The tremendous fear of a harmless but still strangely crippling moment.
She looked down to her cup, studying the brown black depths surrounded by white porcelain, the creeping receding sway of small waves that moved up and down the edges of an oubliette of Columbian roast, or was it French. "I'm sorry the coffee is..." She began before looking up, she was now alone, a neat empty cup sitting top down on the saucer before her. The chair tucked in, and what had been there gone. No footsteps, no door, no car, just emptiness, herself, and her barely warm cup. "...shit"
If her mother had been a hateful bitch these last few years, this would be easier. These things wouldn't have to be so hard, her hands wouldn't tremble and twist within themselves like the knot forming in her mind to find these words. How could she say it to that impassive glance? It would have been a tremendous relief to simply feel a stinging strike to her cheek when she had begun, a tender caress of a hot glob of phlegm, or the refrain of harsh words cursing her name, and being. It was none of that, simply acceptance before those thin, still, almost dead lips parted across the table. "Its time for me to move on isn't it?" The voice was frail, but steady. Her mind reeled at the idea of potentially making the wrong choice, but she couldn't afford to make this draw out any further. "Yes" Her voice was stronger, but trembling, marked by a hesitation in it. The hesitation you feel when going into the company of strangers, or walking into a dark room with no knowledge of a light switch. The tremendous fear of a harmless but still strangely crippling moment.
She looked down to her cup, studying the brown black depths surrounded by white porcelain, the creeping receding sway of small waves that moved up and down the edges of an oubliette of Columbian roast, or was it French. "I'm sorry the coffee is..." She began before looking up, she was now alone, a neat empty cup sitting top down on the saucer before her. The chair tucked in, and what had been there gone. No footsteps, no door, no car, just emptiness, herself, and her barely warm cup. "...shit"