That girl...

That girl...

I always wondered why she was like that. Every day, she sat there, alone, with a boiling cappuccino and a book marked on the same Page 64. She used to add a sugar package and whip the coffee fervently, but she wouldn't take a sip. The first day I offered her a new beverage- I mean, maybe the cup was dirty or the coffee was too cold -, yet she said "No, thank you" with a shy smile and a soft, peculiar voice, like a pebble falling on a wooden floor. Sometimes, I took my tray and began cleaning tables, just to see her closely. The foam and the liquid swang and danced among the porcelain borders, the waves of a mini sea; I believed she was drowning there. I wanted to tap gently on her shoulder, but my mother always told me not to wake up a somnambulist from his trance. "Yes, but she was not sleeping" you might say, yet her eyes were not there, she was not there.

All of a sudden, I stopped seeing her. No one would sit there, not even when the place was crowded; that corner by the window remained untouched, like a spell was thrown on that chair. On the sunny days of her absence, I even thought I saw her, a vaporous ghost (I still shiver with that word). A week passed until I saw the newspaper. I felt attracted by those pages, no matter how much I despise today´s bloody, filthy press. My fingers went mechanically to page 10 and I saw her face. It was her, it was not her: her eyes glowed over the paper and her smile was genuine, not polite: a happy smile. Was that the same girl with opaque sight and clear sighs?

Her name was Marceline, she had 28. Her landlord found her when he went to demand the rent: she had killed herself, poison, the article said. She had no family and only a few friends (I saw them at her funeral). I never realized how much I loved that stranger until she was forever gone. At last, I finally understood it all: she was not drowning in the cappuccino, she had already drowned in her own ocean.

YSFP