The Equable Air

You could see different faces as they poured in like a cup of tea and poured out. They were happy or happy; they weren’t really sad.

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A man in military shorts, his skin a flamingo tinge, replaced his shirt as he ran by the cafe. All eyes were trained on their companions, but everyone saw him through their peripheral vision.

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Hands are safer when they are tucked away. The man was a reminder that their jobs trained them, insidiously, to never look too closely at a thing.

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The worker carried the order to the terrace. Her brows raised and her smile was tight as she registered the familiar face who had made the order. She tracked the runner behind the light post and strained her neck against the stiffened collar of Next’s work shirt. With her attention divided, she could have spilled the coffee over the mug and onto the saucer, then onto her hand.

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She set the mug down with creaking bent knees unheard under the chatter. Her eyes hungrily took in the sight of the dog. She touched the fur impulsively; she held her hand there for a fraction of a second too long. They smiled painfully as they watched the server touch their dog, they tilted their heads when little Joe closed his eyes under the comfort of the server’s hand. They exchanged a few words of he is adorable, is he not, and with a show of gratitude they went back to relaxing their facial muscles.

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All she had to do was to take the loop from around her neck, reach behind her and untie the knot, and let it fall in a pile like newspaper and keep walking until the cafe snapped back onto itself like a workout band. Instead she smoothed the fabric over her hips, easing every thought she just had.

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The warmth of the dog's fur faded from her palms. She sat at the empty table and became like the coffee in the mug; lukewarm without much else.

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There was a shrieking cry that came from the throat of something young and strained. As if by coincidence, every hand in the cafe moved; spoons were set down; napkins were folded; eyes were averted. Cecile turned like a car wheel; she looked with a pinching disgust, but Claudia’s eyes became small, cloudy, and softening the more she looked.

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“I do not think she is happy; not with that thing yelling while she pushes it.” Claudia whispered aqueously. She adjusted her headscarf then her fingers performed a repetitive spider dance against her matte cold ceramic cup.

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“Is it yelling?” Cecile’s voice was metallic. She watched the pale brown liquid in her cup mirror the sky. She refused to look towards the street. “It sounds more like she… failed, I would not know. I have never had a reason to own one.” Cecile's voice was leadenly calm. She could not touch her eyes, to the child. Her elbows were locked; her spine was a rigid line away from the backrest of her chair.

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“If you touch it, it is supposed to go quiet”, Claudia whispered aqueously. She untwisted her spine forward, she narrowed her world to the table and the bare skin beneath her crop top. Only that remained.

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“But imagine the look on their faces if it kept going. Imagine being the centre of that.” She looked as if she were a rat ready to flee a controlled cage of experiments.

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“She is so close to going the other way,” Cecile replied glacially. She fixed her leaden gaze on the street.

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“No one with a lick of sense brings a ‘broken’ thing into the world. She should have stayed in the ward until that thing learned to keep quiet.” The air between them froze like a hand held before the face. Claudia sat back, defeated, as she breathed out the breath she was holding, her shoulders dropping in time with the server’s hitch of breath.

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As the word ‘broken’ hung in the air the server jumped up and collected the empty sugar glasses from the table where she sat, there was haste in her hand and haste in her steps. She turned and pushed the heavy door leaving the customers and the dry air outside to muffle the cry.

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Through the tall windows she could still see them, but the air was now equable. The light was artificial enough to wash her out, making her less visible as she stepped back inside the dream. She picked up a fresh cloth and began to wipe the spotless table as soon as the customer reached the exit.