Coffee Miss
I felt like an idiot, walking down the middle of the pavement slowly as if I had an electric current being applied to my legs, jerking back and forth across the area immediately surrounding the envelope. I'd occasionally look over my shoulder in that City sort of way. This is the manner you use when you're trying to take a look at something you either saw, thought you saw, or would like to see whilst also making sure you aren't about to be run over by some fellow City dweller who just happens to be barreling down the street at an incredible rate of speed and not at all interested in slowing down to take a look at what it is you're trying to look. So I slowed, legs shuffling awkwardly, kicked at the envelope's corner, trying to see if a letter wasn't left behind inside the discarded envelope, as well. I slowed a little more when the envelope didn't budge in the slighest at any of my kicks. I tried dragging one foot behind me, and threw a quick glance forward to cover the time I'd spent and would be spending looking backwards at the ground to make sure I wouldn’t be waylaid by an otherwise innocent pedestrian with a hard, bone-cracking briefcase. I managed to drag the envelope yet further down the pavement, adding a few new scuffmarks, until it eventually hit a seam in the flagstones, and the flap crumpled open. By this time I'd stopped completely, having given up the pretence that I'd just been walking rather slowly, looking at the ground. Being stationary, I looked up from the pavement more often than I would have were I moving, seeing as how most city dwellers tend to aim for stationary things in the great hockey game that goes on on the sidewalks every day. Unfortunately, though also luckily, there was nothing inside. So I was saved either the arduous task of kicking the envelope up and down the sidewalk for the remainder of the morning and most of the afternoon trying to ferret out the letter, maneuvering it into a good enough position to read, more effort and kicking required for turning any extra pages, and then peering down at the pavement with my back hunched over and eyes squinted over each line. Or my dignity was saved when I had no reason not to simply bend over and pick it up. I resisted the urge to pick it up, regardless of its contents, which I considered a big win, morally, or something, for myself.
There was no stumbling. No fall into a nearby hedge. No other witnesses except for a few bored people, waiting at the bus shelter, maybe a few walking further down the sidewalk, all of whom were busy studiously ignoring the man kicking at garbage on the streets in the hope that he didn't approach any one of them. But it was just as impressive as 'God Coffee.' If not moreso, because this one was a phrase, hell, a whole sentence. And it seemed vaguely connected to what my psyche had been calmly and rationally trying to tell me. Well, to a degree. And not all of what it had been calmly and rationally telling me, of course. I had to admit that "I miss you" was a sentiment that would have made a hell of a lot more sense than "God coffee," and would have played much better with my state had I found it first. After getting a sensible message like 'I miss you' from the trash I would have been infinitely more willing to accept the slightly more... obtuse message of 'God Coffee.' At any rate, I definitely owed it - whatever the hell 'it' was that was sending me these messages - a coffee for that, at the very least. My psyche stopped screaming for a second to agree.
disclaimer:
Okay, so we're working out kinks in the whole signup thing at the moment (damn programmers...), so it'll be down until further notice.
We'll also be back with the serial next week, this week the focus around the office has really been God Coffee, I Miss You, as it nudges like some sort of really big glacier towards publication.
Which is why we've got a little clip from it above. So enjoy.
And we'll see you next week.