Umbrella over Coffee

I opened my umbrella and made my way precariously down the glossy steps, the paper bag holding my birthday treat from Starbucks dangling from the tips of my fingers. I’d wrapped 2021 and was all ready to indulge in some sweets and coffee.

As I approached the traffic lights, I saw a young man ahead, waiting at the kerb for the green light. Suddenly, I had an impulse to shelter him from the rain. It was something I hadn’t felt like doing in a long time. As the lights remained stationary, I decided and took a breath. Here goes.

“Would you like me to shelter you across?”

He turned towards me with a slight look of surprise. “Oh… no it’s okay, I’m just going nearby.”

“It’s okay, I’m going the same way,” I said with a grin beneath my mask.

I held out my umbrella towards him and we waited, a slightly awkward silence hanging between us. All too soon, it was green and we started walking.

In that short walk, I found out he lived in the apartment across and was waiting to study Architecture at university. We talked about how he is looking to tutor Math and Science instead of English like me, about mothers, about kids. I spoke of enjoying couplehood; he asked if I was going out to celebrate New Year’s Eve. We shared a wistful wish to travel and then arrived at the diversion where we were to part.

“Well, all the best for your studies,” I said. He responded with some parting words. There were no numbers, no Instagrams, just a serendipitous act of charity for a stranger who remained one at the end of it.

And somehow, it lent a sort of magical touch to this New Year’s Eve, as if humans crave the warmth of giving in the coldness the world has come to be. Maybe. But I know I would do the same again the next time I have an umbrella over coffee.

Wishing everyone a very happy new year.

Glass

I hadn’t written in a while so I asked for a muse and got ‘glass’. Glass it is.

He lifted the glass to his lips and took a drink. Soft ambience music and quiet voices of other customers around him threatened to mingle with his thoughts.

Alone in a foreign city, he was a traveller between worlds, a dreamer lost in his conquests.

“Your glass looks lonely.”

He looked up as a female voice said quietly. It was matter-of-fact yet bore a hint of conspiracy, almost a whisper in his ear.

He hadn’t noticed her before, but there she was, gazing at him with a smile, sitting a few stools away, her drink held between her fingers with casual poise.

“Well then, it would be a pleasure if your glass could keep it company.”

“Don’t mind if it does.”

She walked over, placing her glass carefully beside his.

“It seems to be almost empty.”

“Yeah, it’s been here for a while. Hadn’t done much except to give me a taste of the city thus far.”

“And do you like what you have tasted?”

She looked at him as she tilted the contents in her glass between the parting of her lips.

“Mostly.”

“But there is more to the city than what your glass has to offer.”

“I’m sure there is.”

“Maybe I can show you… around.”

“That would be most delightful. And I’m sure my glass no longer needs my company now that it has yours for that.”

She laughed a little, a wink of amusement in her eyes, then both of them stepped out of the bar into the night, while his glass and hers remained, out of sight.

Train Ride

He checked her out.

Letting his eyes run down the contours of her body slowly and back up.

She knew.

Forced into his full view by the crowd, she had noticed him the minute he glanced up.

—

The crowd alighted.

A space appeared right between them, stark naked.

New crowd entered.

That space was almost immediately taken, somewhat a relief.

He turned on his tablet and she took in the scene of clinical oblivion, glued commuters and their beloved screens.

—

As the train pulled in, their eyes met. She gave him a slight smile. He returned it.

Then he rose.

Pushing through, he came towards her.

As he passed, the air between them was all over each other, tangled and desirous, raw and sexual.

He thrusted, harder and urgent; she clawed with the whites of her eyes, gasping, rhythmic.

Then he was gone.

The train picked up speed.

She smiled to herself.

Shelter

Amidst the bustle of activity, something seemed to change, so quickly yet subtly. In place, there was an air of careful caution.

Dusk had fallen.

As you led the way trailing some others ahead, we laid our steps carefully enough to not wake the bodies sleeping on the ground. My eyes fell upon your back – you were broader and stronger than I remembered you to be. Falling around your shoulders, locks of hair glistened where it caught the light.

Deviating from them disappearing straight ahead, you turned right and I followed. We were met by a steep flight of wooden stairs leading down to an open doorway. A sharp draft gusted as we went down – it was a cold morning. Nearing the bottom of the staircase, I caught sight of a German shepherd, standing guard at the exit. Instinctively, I stretched out my hand and petted it, then you did too and it became friendly and did not bark. We got past it and were on our way.

“You’re not worried at all, are you?”

All I remembered was I was not afraid because it was a place I knew. You took my hand – it was an unsafe situation – then we went up a narrow flight of stairs, much like those one could see flanking a traditional Chinese performing stage.

Seeking shelter, we found ourselves at the entrance to a motel.

A man sat nonchalantly at the doorway which opened up to a troupe of Vietnamese ladies; they were rehearsing for their performance, dancing with strips of silk cloth. It was dinghy but clean.

You walked in to enquire of a lady perched at the counter if there were rooms; she replied in the negative. Turning around, you made your way pass the dancing ladies towards me. Arriving back by my side, you faced me looking weary, then gave me a gentle smile of apology. As we were about to leave, one of the ladies asked us where we were going, and where you were from.

As though in reply, you drew me into your arms and held me quietly. As I lay with my right cheek against your chest, an overwhelming comforting sense of safety flowed from my centre throughout my whole being, and I knew there was nowhere else I wanted to be.

One of the ladies commented that you were a foreigner and another told her she had to remember your face if you were going to be working with them. Turning to us, she asked what you were teaching, in a language I understood but which you did not. I turned to you and translated what she said, but all you did was to gaze at me without a word, still that gentle smile on your face.

And in that long wait for your reply, time seemed to have stood still, before it all faded…

Bus Stop

The bus lurched to a halt and the flaps retracted.

Instinctively, she glanced up, only to be met by a stranger’s eyes. For a moment, they held each other; his mouth curved up into a slight smile and she reciprocated.

In that moment, a meeting, an acquaintance, a brief connection if you must, yet a moment that prompted neither to move. He broke away and she did too.

As the doors clamped back into position, he returned gaze in farewell and she allowed it to be so, a faint smile on her lips as the vehicle pulled her away.

Photo Challenge: Security

She swooped down in a fluster
Arriving one nature’s day
Then offered me her complete trust
And swept my heart away.

Encounter

---

Such a multitude
Of hot-blooded exchanges
Between eyes that meet.