Coffee Gone Cold

They had nothing to say to each other, he sitting there inhaling his cigarette, the ribbon of smoke lacing itself through stringy wind tossed hair, ash finding a home in his dull hot eyes. He was watching the clock on the opposite wall, ticking off the weight of the empty seconds. There was a sigh and it came from her reddened lips, and her fingers began to tap against the edge of the small round table. The coffee had gone cold in their forgotten mugs and she watched it swish. Back and forth. She timed it with the clock. They sat that way for a finite eternity before he finally turned to her, walled-off eyes glaring at the incessant painted nails.

“So it’s over,” said his deep monotone voice. It was a new tone for him and it dropped like drips of coffee gone cold.

She looked down at her red nails with her red eyes. “It never began.”

He nodded. Once. The silence returned, the last embers of his cigarette burning away until the last ash fell and he snubbed out the last of the fire in the dirty ashtray between them. He stood, button-up shirt and Levi’s and now the trench coat that he always wore. The clock was counting the seconds again.

They had nothing to say to each other.

Rigidly he turned, long strides out of the room. The apartment door clicked closed loudly behind him. Gone. She sat alone. There was another long silence, emptier and longer than she ever remembered. It ended with the clank of her mug as she drank her coffee gone cold.