Primordium

Steam curls from the surface of her tea and she wraps her hands around the blue cup to keep them warm. The weather has been chilly of late and she has resorted to thick gloves and a wool coat. Frost shines on the windowpanes, icy rime on sill of the doors and windows. The light that shines in distorted columns on her table and the chair across from her is yellow and warm, however, and the scarlet velvet plush of the empty seat reminds her of the embers of a fire.

She waits patiently for many minutes, watching the other patrons mingle and murmur quietly, which she sips. When the minute hand of the clock above the door has moved almost a quarter of a circle, she reaches into her jacket and retrieves a small book that was not there a moment ago.

The book is old, an antique with a pearly black cover, faded to a dull soot-grey at the edges, and embossed with a silver title, but it has been her favourite for ages and she loses herself in it so completely that she is startled when she is joined by a young man.

He looks no different than he did the last time she saw him. Perhaps there is one more line in his face, a permanent furrow to his brow, and his hair is slightly longer, but he fixes her with the same grey gaze.

“You still love to read. I am glad. I was beginning to think I knew nothing about you anymore,” is how he greets her.

Celia closes her book, not bothering to mark her page; she will find it again with ease, and picks up her cup of tea again. “I believe there is much you don’t know about me. But it is fair; for there are many things I don’t know about you. Why you asked me here, for instance.”

Instead of answering he calls over a waitress and orders a bottle of burgundy, a vintage he knows is her favourite. He regards her while he waits, taking in the features he has always found striking, the darkness of her hair against her pale skin, her girlish eyelashes and lips.

"It is beautiful, and very impressive. And it must be hard to maintain," says the gentleman, changin the subject, as he takes his seat across from her. He removes his bowler hat and the shadow that covered his eyes is gone. They stare directly into hers. 

"Thank you. It isn't all my doing, though. The performers are splendid on their own; I simply manage the trickier aspects." She closes her book and sets it aside, then takes a sip of tea.

Text by Lucie MacAulay