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Printed from https://writing.com/main/view_item/item_id/1048816-That-Woman-and-I
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by Endael Author IconMail Icon
Rated: E · Short Story · Drama · #1048816
A couple in a cafe inspired me, this is what came of my daily writing for that day.
The couple across the way watched each other closely as they prepared for what they had come to do. The woman removed a translucent box which contained many smaller sections of beads. The man put down a sack he had carried in on his back and fished about inside it.
I saw the looks in their eyes. Their eyes did not completely trust each other, yet within those same eyes love looked from one gaze to the other.
They both settled upon a table in the center of the café area. Although neither of them held a drink, they had found their place; no one stirred to keep them from it.
The woman sat down with her beads and fished out a line of string. Knotting one end, she began to slide beads down the line.
The man sat down without satisfaction. He ceased his search within his own pack, and now began to look amongst her beads. Though he kept his arms crossed, his eyes betrayed their searching.
The woman had at least ten beads lightly placed on the string. These beads shone with iridescent colors that never repeated. She looked upon it with satisfaction, and motioned for the man to do the same. However, the man's eyes knew nothing but the small sections within her box as he became even more frantic in his searching.
She looked quizzically at him, and motioned once more with the beads for him to look. The fragile glass of the beads clinked in response to her violent motion; even so, they did not break.
He looked up slowly, as he had finished his search; the item he looked for could not be found at all. Still not catching her eyes, he quickly darted his own about the café.
Again without the subject of his looks, he surrendered finally to her gaze. Opening his own soul, he looked into her eyes.
She saw what was there in his eyes. She had the faintest whisper in the back of her mind of what he would say, had he the truth to speak it.
Her eyes darted to his arms, crossed as they were, and back to his eyes; it was a simple command that spoke volumes without any words.
Immediately the suspicion in her eyes and the guilt within his neck linked together in a beautiful dance of victim and perpetrator.
He removed his hands from their crossing, showing her the empty space on his left ring finger.
The string of beads fell from her hands. The string unraveled as the beads fell upon the table, and then the floor; this final crash sent shards of beautiful glass across the floor.
She held her hand to her face, shielding her tears from the onlookers that now were catching the scene. She stood up quickly, and gasped for air. She didn't bother with the beads, but simply ran away while she let out a stifled cry that was all but intelligible.
Few could tell that she had labeled him as he was, an adulterer. A cheater.
The man now sat crying at that same table.
Crossing the room, I placed his wedding ring upon the table before him and walked away silently, for we had both been betrayed by his lies.
© Copyright 2005 Endael (kaed at Writing.Com). All rights reserved.
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