Impasse

“Impasse”

a short story

Gary Baker, March 2014

Two years back I was ready to jump ship. I was standing on the corner of Haight and Ashbury, looking at my feet, ready to take the plunge, and then I found God. I’d never bothered to call myself an atheist until that precise moment and, ever since then, I’ve never seen any reason to change that.

I remember the wind, the incessant tugging of air at my jacket like an unseen monstrous entity trying to throw me around. It was enough to boil the blood in my veins before I even looked down to see the bustling streets so very, incredibly far below. I inhaled deeply through my nose and held it for a second, awaiting the calming effect that it often gave, then slowly, so very slowly released it through pursed lips.

My breath quivered as it went, anxiety meshing with raw fear and a wish that it didn’t have to be this way. I opened my eyes, unaware that I had ever closed them in the first place, and looked once more upon the setting sun falling between skyscrapers. The world was coming to an end. Everything was crumbling and there was nothing I nor anyone else could do about it.

They say the ring of fire was on the verge of breaking itself, that the icecaps were gone completely and that the most recent hurricane in the Caribbean wasted it’s way all the way through to Moscow before finally petering itself out. Claims had been made that the moon was shifting in it’s orbit and that one more nudge in either direction and there would be two possible outcomes: A- it would fall toward us and be the last thing anyone ever saw, or B- it would drift away into space and would kill the cycle of weather and tides and so on. From there it was only a matter of time before the whole of human existence simply shut out like a dimming LED.

I wasn’t ready to face those consequences. My life had been perfect up until then. I had a wife, three loving children, and a career as a high market supervisor for a publishing firm at the dawn of an age when books -- real books -- had come back into style. These days everyone carried some literary document made of pulped wood and ink with them at all times. Some chose the age-old classics from the early twenty-one hundreds, with topics that bordered on the heretical dislike of technology, while others chose more modern titles spanning anything from the sciences to the dead religions that technology had slowly pushed out of society.

Yet it would all be gone in a mere echo of the dials upon a clock. Entropy had reached it’s end, and I wasn’t one to face things like that head on. What if the world burst into flames? How could my pale complexion face such a feat without hordes of pain lasting all-too long? Besides that, I hated pain. I still do.

So there I was, facing the sun for the last time with my buttoned jacket beating a quick rhythm against my throat as though drums beating out my lonesome dirge. A tear dripped down my cheek and fell from my chin. I watched it fall, eyeing the glint of refracted light as it pre-enacted what I was just about to do.

And, in the uncaring crowds below, I made eye-contact with God.

My heart skipped a beat. Maybe more than that. I just know it felt like forever that I was transfixed in those eyes. They seemed to hold everything, like miniature doorways to the whole universe with infinite stars and everything just a few cellular molecules apart. I couldn’t tell the gender from that height, but there was no mistaking who it was: all the dead religions boiled down to that one moment when what appeared to be a pitiful homeless vagrant caught the sight of a man about to end it with a half step into empty air.

Suddenly I slammed against the stone wall, my heels arching as I tried to get back to something stable. I was inside my office before I knew it and was racing lopsided to the elevator terminal even as I suddenly realized I’d lost a shoe. It didn’t matter, though, as I just had to get there. I had to meet him -- her -- it -- or whatever God claimed to be.

“Got a hot date?” Jennison Valdery mocked me as she calmly sipped her protein-infused mocha beside me. Her suit had been pressed and refitted just that morning, smoothing the edges of her elegant hips with swatches of silk-like carbon micromesh and an underlying leather-tan fabric. She eyed me with an arched painted eyebrow and eyelashes that extended all the way to her forehead as the latest fashions dictated.

“No,” I mumbled, loosening my tie awkwardly as we descended floor by floor.

She laughed that fake laugh of hers, a chuckle that was supposed to catch men off-guard. It didn’t work on me, not these days, not now that I had a purpose. We’d had an affair once or twice before, I will admit, having hit the red panel on the way down to indicate a corporate need to stop the elevator as would be done in a private meeting. It happened more than either of us wanted to admit, but I never had the heart to tell my wife.

“So then what’s the hurry?” She crossed her arms curiously and leaned against the polished steel panelling. “It’s not like the world is going to end any time soon is it?” She smirked with a wide grin of pearly teeth and deep green lips that also followed the latest styles. “Oh, wait -- I forgot: it is!” The doors opened and I began toward them. “Well, whatever,” she cooed as I passed, “the way I see it? Doesn’t mean a thing. It’ll all be dust in a few days anyways, eh?” She kept talking, but the doors had already started closing and I was well on my way through the foyer to the corner door that led outside to the unfabricated breezes and scents.

It took a second of looking anew from this alternate angle, but I found him again with another stroke of lightning in my chest. He was still there on the sidewalk, smoking the last cigarette from a now-empty pack, watching the skies and occasionally shaking his mug with a few macro M-chips inside.

Again I had a hard time telling if God was a man or woman, or even one of those who’d been born into the middle sex given by a feat of nature and technology. For a split second I wondered what he would prefer I call him. Should I address this person as ‘Sir’? ‘Ma’am’? Perhaps even ‘thei’ as had been the overall middle term for the last century?

Instead, I lost my chance -- God looked my way, dirty pudgy face and all, broken teeth jutting to the side here and there, and grime colonies seeming to decay the very flesh upon which growth was enabled. This was a person on the verge of death as well and I wondered for a split second if that was ironic. “Well don’t just stand there,” thei called, “come closer, share a smoke with me, eh?”

I wanted to move, but found myself frozen in place. What did one say to the living patron saint of the longest-lived, though still dead, religion of Earth?

We stared through billows of smoke for ages before God shook the cup again and received a few chips from a passing soul while, in the distance, someone succeeded where I had faltered. I heard the horrendous smack and winced, though no one else seemed to even notice. These days it was far too common a sight in the cities.

“Sad, that one,” God mumbled, taking another draw of the tobacco. Those eyes still held me, keeping me staring, no matter how hard I tried to get away. “Single theilen, obviously no offspring, with a fanatic tendency to paint like no other.” God pursed it’s lips to the side, “I always wondered when those chemicals would start to affect thei and convince thei to end it.”

God lifted a grubby finger with more oily dirt on it than I had ever seen this deep in the city. “Almost like you, I might add.” A welcoming, warm smile appeared and I found myself sitting cross-legged on the ionic-edge street side with someone so low comparatively that most must have thought I’d lost it. “See? No harm done, my little lamb. None at all.”

Dumbfounded I just leaned on my knees and shrugged. “Where’ve you been?” I finally breathed.

“Here,” she handed me the tobacco and I took it gingerly, since I didn’t really think I had the choice of saying ‘no’ to a smoke from God. “Now what’s this about my whereabouts?”

I drew the first breath of smoke that I’d ever done in my life and coughed instantly, much to God’s cackling humor. When I finally caught myself again, I shot him a look of annoyed wonder. “Where have you been all my life?”

God raised thei’s bushy, unshaven eyebrows as though over the wires of a pair of spectacles. “You mean to say you, or anyone living in your religiousless times for that matter, need the likes of me?”

“Well, yeah.”

“As in I, the famed-” she scowled, “well, at one time I was -- creator of all things in this universe?”

I glanced to people casually passing by as the world counted down it’s last moments. They all seemed so calm, so eerily unaware. I wanted to grab one of them by the shoulders and shake them, asking frantically “don’t you care? Are you not afraid? Am I the only one who sees this?!” Instead I returned my gaze to God’s eyes, those magnificent eyes that held eons of everything imaginable. It was ironic that suddenly I had the inspiration to write books upon books on anything that came to mind, and all when I had perhaps a day or so to live. “Well I sort of had a bad week last week.”

“Meaning?”

“I stubbed my toe when getting out of my sleeping capsule, then forgot to put on my autodetection ring and was locked out of the vehicle pod for hours while I searched through messes of everything in my home for it, and things just kept getting worse for me.”

“And you just assumed I had nothing better to do.”

I shrugged, “if there was ever a time where I wished a god existed to control my fate then that was it!”

She nodded with lips pursed around the cigarette, “hmm, you wanted someone to blame it all on.” Her face became a flurry of wrinkles as she drew again and frowned at me, then handed the tobacco back for me to do the same. “Alright, lamb,” God mumbled while streaming thick smoke from her nostrils, “look at me. What do you see?”

I finally inhaled smoke without choking and let it sit in my lungs for a bit, as I’d seen God do, before releasing it into the wild air again. But I did look him over as commanded, noting the scraps of sullied trash bags used as a makeshift belt, the stains of God-knew-what, and gave myself a moment to chuckle at that thought, coating his every last garment. He wore sneakers three sizes too small, his toes peeking out of mouth-like holes in the forefronts, and laces so frayed it looked like God had assembled them from body hair over the years. He was overweight, yet anorexically thin in the same glance, where the rags neglected to cover his pasty diseased skin, and each breath both expanded his visible ribcage as well as tightened the cellulite beneath that.

“Are you looking?” Thei asked. “I mean really, truly looking at me?”

“Yeah, and?”

“Krishna, lamb!” She cursed. “Why do you think I look like this? Why would an all-powerful being choose to be poorer than dirt, or eat scraps of food leftover after the rats are done, eh?”

I was silent, trying to figure out a good response.

“Or how about this one,” he shot again, “if I were so benevolent and all-powerful, why would I allow the universe to be about to collapse for your kind?”

I frowned at my one remaining glossy neosuede shoe, letting the tobacco ease my anxiety. “Because… you’re just an asshole?” As soon as I’d said it, I hated myself.

God smirked joyously and I watched as thei made the cigarette grow back to full length and reignite itself, then took a dramatically long pull. As thei released the smoke with a sigh, God rolled thei’s eyes toward me awkwardly. “Exactly.”

Suddenly I felt wronged. The world was about to end and all because the last living god had simply decided he was annoyed with humanity? What gave him -- her -- thei the right? “Are you serious?” I jabbed and snatched the tobacco away from the bastard.

“Completely,” she sniffed angrily. She crossed her arms and fell backwards onto her pile of things that looked more like trash blown in on the wind. “Think of it this way, lamb: I am the last god out there. All the others faded away as science inevitably snipped us out of the human mind. We once reigned over everything, you know, our power limited only by the vast numbers of those who worshipped us, and now only I exist due to scholars unwillingly acknowledging me because of a book I, more or less, wrote eons before their time.” She rolled onto her side to face me as she took the tobacco back for another pull. “Obviously I was pissed. Science had, in fact, won out on us all and there wasn’t even a god at it’s center for us to complain to. So I made an ultimatum: starting on this coming Tuesday I will only allow your universe to exist for one day for each soul that believes in me. Just one, each.”

I gaped and smoke dribbled from my lips. “No shit,” I breathed exasperatedly.

“Trust me, there’s shit,” he huffed angrily, “and it’s all your lousy asses that walk this earth, too. Nothin’ shittier than a bunch of worshipers ignoring you and your miracles for the plain-old screen of the latest phone.”

Then it struck me: there was a loophole. “So, wait, you mean to say that if, say, three people were to start worshipping you right now you would let the earth live for another three days beyond Tuesday?”

Thei grinned. “That’s exactly what I mean, little lamb.”

“So,” I hesitated; how to word this in a way that God would tell me completely? “How do I get atheists to start believing in a disproven god?” Then I startled with a shock of realization. “Wait -- how do I prove you to me? I can’t go out there spreading the word of your sorry ass if I don’t even believe in you.”

Crossing his nasty-smelling arms under his head as a pillow, God laughed lightly. “Well you can always wait until December twenty-fifth to find out for yourself if I’m legitimate or not.”

“But that’s this Tuesday!”

“As I said: I’m giving you humans until my son’s birthday to start worshipping me, and from then on I will only give you shits one day per believer to continue existing.” The grin on her lips was frighteningly dark.

Vasher, Savior of Children

“Vasher, Savior of Children”

a short story 

Gary Baker, April 2012

[final revision: December, 2012]

The glass was empty. It was fucking empty and there was nothing anyone could do about it. Not even a single drop of anything could have deemed this container "x-percent" full. No, every last person who viewed it had to look at it as being one-hundred percent empty, and no one would be able to disagree.

Why the hell was this piece of glass shaped into a skinny skyward-arcing dome, and not then filled with something? It wasn't so much the need of a substance within the confines of this object but, rather, the prospect that no matter how he were to describe this scene he would be forced to look at it negatively. But why the hell must he, anyways? Could he not claim that it was more than one-hundred percent full of nothing? or maybe that it was full of air?

Sighing, Vasher set down the multi-dimensional mug with a loud clunk as the thick base contacted the brass countertop.

Bagels with Arabica

“Bagels with Arabica”

a short story

Gary Baker, April 2012

A sudden wave of warmth came over Leaf as he stepped into the threshold of Cafe Gruyer -- pronounced ‘grue - yay’ as the french owner would always claim -- and he smiled. The alkali-earth taste of fresh brewed espresso and Arabica filled his mouth as though he’d just taken a gulp of pure Costa Rican air. It was a portal to the tropical cafetería of his homeland, despite being smack dab in the middle of San Francisco, California.

Leaf stepped up to the counter of the small cafe, noting with glee just how the various polished brown marble tables with their dark lacquered oak chairs along his path made the inner-city palace of a shop feel more homely. The walls of tarnished bone-yellow suited the deep maroons of the espresso machines perfectly, and the occasional palm saplings added just enough greenery to give the place an even more authentic home-style cafe vibe.

The order counter was a great slab of gray marble, purposely placed to draw the customer in and make a purchase before being lulled into the live jazz music that musicians played on a small one-step stage in the back left corner. Stacks of white porcelain mugs leaned against the back wall of the work space, right beside more of a dark slate-gray tone. It reminded him of the pillars of smoke that would rise up from the pits of methane and sulfur on Volcan Poas and Volcan Arenal after week-long storm surges. Usually, he visualized, the methane would be ignited by such magnificent travesties as bolt-lightning along the mountains backside. Both the storm and its effects, he remembered, were worth greater viewing than even the latest Michael Bay film; though they were often just as explosive.

“Can I get you anything?” 

Leaf startled, having lost himself in memories long gone enough that he hadn't seen the barista come up. “Oh, um,” he muttered, stalling for time while he quickly scanned the menu of the wall above the mugs, “yeah, I’ll just have a cup of the house blend -- black, and twelve ounce, please.”

She smiled and let the soft ringlet curls of her golden blonde hair sway as she typed his order into the register. “That’ll be two seventy-five.” She chimed. He handed her three dollars in cash, and mumbled to keep the change. Then a sudden rhythmic hum, and she handed over his receipt. “Sit anywhere you like, sir, I’ll bring it out to you.”

He turned away from the counter to face the double-glass doors where, just outside, he could see a city bus stop with three people in their thick jackets and slacks stood cowering from the heavy misting rain. Beside them, almost in the curb, lay a homeless man with a thick white beard in a blue raincoat and a soaked pair of light tan khaki jeans. “Actually,” Leaf paused, smiling, then dug out a ten dollar bill from his back pants pocket and turned to place it on the counter, “how much food will this buy for the man out front?”

One makeup drawn eyebrow rose higher than the other, as she failed to hide a beaming grin. “Well you've got a choice: either three bagels with cream cheese, or three slices of coffee cake, or one bagel with cream cheese and a cake with a small coffee.” She paused. “Then again, I guess you could really just mix and match from all of the above.” She leaned on the counter, craning her neck to look at the sleeping man out front as he slept the day away despite how bad the rain was getting. “But for him? I’d suggest the bagels -- he’s always looking for our extras in the garbage bins after closing.” Taking the money, she scribbled a quick note on a pad to the left side of the register and winked at Leaf. “I’ll toss in a fresh cup of joe for him as well -- on the house.”

Leaf nodded. “One last thing: do you know when the Pagan gathering is being held? I heard somewhere that it was here, and wanted to check it out.”

As she began preparing the two drip coffees, she shot a quick motion of her head towards the wall on his far right. “The flyer’s over there, but they won’t be on time -- they never are.” With a glance from behind the main espresso machine, her blue eyes twinkled as she added. “Maybe you’ll even see me go on break before they get here.”

“I’d like that.” Leaf turned away, blushing, and made his way to a wall seat where he could watch her give the man outside his meal all while still being able to enjoy the music.

The seat itself was a comfy caramel orange with a pattern of white apple blossoms made to look like they were blowing in the wind, and the window behind it was double-paned with signs of precipitation condensing on the innermost plane. The table was just like the rest but shaped instead into a large rectangle to better fit the wall seating. All the others like it were set with the day’s newspaper, a small vase with a solitary rose, and a copy of the latest New Yorker.

Leaf pulled his arms free of his coat, with water resistant black fabric on the outside and speckled white faux pas wolf fur on the inside, to set it on the oak chair across from where he planned to sit. The New Yorker on the table showed its usual cover of the man in a top hat holding some object before himself, and a wall of red brick behind him including green bushes on either side, so he pushed it aside to make room for the coffee on its way.

The sudden drop of a beat in the music followed quickly by the bassist bringing up a thrum-bum-bum that led into a deep cello solo, gave an odd overtone to his wait. Then, just as suddenly, came the tone of an older man to Leaf's left, “so I overheard that you’re looking to find out more about the Pagan gathering?” Leaf turned to him and dipped his brow in acknowledgement to the man in a brown petticoat over a pale blue dress-shirt. “The way that I see it?" The man said, "don’t bother. Nothing but a bunch of phonies looking for hard-earned cash from out of your pocket.”

Leaf paused in thought. How could he handle this without looking like the sort of ‘phony’ that the man inadvertently claimed all pagans were? So he smiled with a slight breathy laugh. “How so?”

The man smirked, making his wrinkled forehead shift under his balding scalp. “Call it ‘religious intuition’, dear boy.” Suddenly the man’s hand shot toward Leaf from the man’s table, insisting that the younger shake it. “The name’s Jeff. I’m an evangelist pastor for the northern Californian area.”

“Um,” Leaf paused, trying not to sound dumb or pugnacious by telling his pagan nickname, Leaf, though it was much better than his real name, Sagittarius, based on the stars during his birth. To hell with it, he thought as he grabbed the man’s hand and shook it. “Leaf.”

Jeff stared, though whether astonished or annoyed Leaf couldn't tell. “A nickname, I presume?”

“Properly Sagittarius, but yeah its a nickname. If you ask me, ‘Leaf’ is a much better nickname than ‘Sag’ or ‘Ter’, though.”

“Indeed.” Suddenly the man was silent, as if rethinking his yet unvoiced religious compounding of monotheism being better than the rest. It was only then that the man visibly noticed the thumbnail-sized Wiccan star pendant at Leaf’s collar. “Right,” he began, “well it’s been fun, but it seems that I have to get back to the church.” The pastor stood and grabbed his newspaper before quickly pacing to the door where he shifted his way out and used the periodical to keep himself dry.

The last few sips of the man’s drink sat abandoned on his table.

The girl from behind the counter appeared at his side with two coffees in white mugs, one more in a to-go cup, and a clear plastic bag of bagels in her hands. “Wow,” she exclaimed as she set the two in-house mugs onto the table, “I've never seen him leave so fast, before.” She smiled at him blissfully, and strode through the glass doors with the bagels and coffee to go, pausing under the slight overhang of Cafe Gruyer. Leaf leaned back to watch through the window as the woman tried to keep from getting soaked in what had become a serious downpour, in just her basic faded black sneakers, black slacks and a white button-up beneath her mocha-brown apron.

She leapfrogged her way from cafe door to the umbrella of a pedestrian to the bus stop overhang, then stepped close to the sleeping man before kneeling at his side. Her small hand reached for his side, holding both the cup and bag in the other, and nudged his shoulder gingerly until his eyes fluttered open. Her lips moved hastily as she talked to him, before she handed over the steaming mug of house blend with the bagels. Suddenly, he smiled and tried to tilt his beanie to her like an old-fashioned cowboy would to a lady of wealthy birth, then rolled to his side and shimmied his way under the overhang where he began nibbling on one of several asiago cheese bagels. When he saw that they were fresh, and even warm, he beamed with delight, and began shivering with what had to be tears of joy.

Finally, the barista returned and made her way inside where customers struck her with a loud wave of applause, blessing her with tidings of good cheer and gracious thanks. Leaf almost felt sorry for her as she removed her apron and tilted her head so that her hair could hide just how flushed her cheeks had become.

“Thank you.” He mouthed as she pulled an empty seat out and sat down next to him.

“So,” changing the subject, she grinned through still-blushing cheeks, “Sagittarius, huh?”

“Most people just call me Leaf.”

She tossed her hair to one side and leaned on her upturned left palm, watching him with slightly accentuated eyes from faint violet mascara. “Well either way, that was the nicest thing I have ever seen anyone do.”

As if she had set him up in benevolent revenge, it was then his turn to blush; he hid himself with a sip from the white mug. Her soft tone seemed to sing--seemed to perfect the world--and it seemed to emanate the essence of the generosity that Leaf had just shown. “Hey,” he argued pointedly, “you’re the one who changed that order into a bag of bagels and a coffee -- so the way that I see it, we can call it a dual effort.”

She gleamed affectionately, and her lotus-pink nails suddenly appeared in the air in front of him as she held her hand out for his own. He grasped her soft hand in his own, amazed at how tender her fingers were despite working around hot metals and rough chemical cleaners all the time. She flushed, and found herself tripping over her own words. “I’m Aria--but my friends call me ‘Arabica’ because, well, I’m always making coffee and that kind just so happens to be my favorite, but I really don’t mind it unless they use that whole ‘abc's of Aria’ thing agai--” With a start, Aria realized that she had almost turned to rambling, and trailed off with Leaf chuckling behind another sip.

The girl sighed, and lifted her own mug to drink. “Sorry,” she winced, “I guess I almost lost myself there, didn't I?”

Leaf grinned, “it was... engaging, to say the least.”

“You are too kind, dear sir.” She mocked playfully.

He smirked, and shook his head softly. “Yes, well ‘everyone is a moon, and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody’.”

Aria gaped, then recovered herself by quickly responding, “Yet after what you just did for that man out there -- or how you just referenced Mark Twain -- I highly doubt that your ‘dark side’ is anything less than an even greater kindness.”

It was fate, Leaf just knew it. The mere fact that she had picked up on such a small notion within his own modesty meant that she must hold such as well. Perhaps, he mused, being obsessed with literature might finally be paying off. “Alright,” he laughed, quickly glancing to the rose in its crystal vase and back to her, “then how about this one? ‘What's in a name? That which we call a rose, by any other word would smell just as sweet.’”

She paused, thinking as she took another sip of coffee. “I want to say that’s from Ibsen,” seeing his face as his lips perked into a devious grin, she retorted “but that would be way off.” Finally, Aria set the mug down and scowled into the darkly reflecting pool, “I know I’ve heard that one before, I just know it!” Suddenly, her blue eyes lit up with excitement and met his own with startling clarity while her smile deepened into a broad grin that pressed slight dimples into her cheeks. “That’s a line from Romeo and Juliet, spoken by...” Again, she paused and sighed, as if thinking deeply about how to beat the predicament he’d given. “Well I’m just going out a limb here, but was that Romeo referencing Juliet?”

“Other way around, actually.” Leaf said, and placed his half-full coffee down. “And since you brought it up, how about this one? ‘A thousand words will not leave so deep an impression as one deed.’”

“Indeed,” Aria exclaimed. She had grasped it instantly, as if she herself had been thinking about it earlier. “Obviously that’s Ibsen, most likely from a letter for someone, right?” It was then that her excitement seemed to fall, shifting back within herself. Her voice was tight, almost a whisper, “is that why you did what you did for the man out front?”

All he could do in that sudden moment of changed resonance was shrug, “Yes and no.”

Her eyes searched for a reason, for answers, for anything that might give a better answer than that which he had just given. He could only watch as she scanned his face, those sharp blue eyes with hints of green darting to and fro across his every feature. He became suddenly aware of the near skin-tight grey t-shirt he wore which contrasted uniquely with his dark navy jeans, and the resplendent silver pentacle at his neck. 

Continuing his response, merely to stay sane beneath such a beatific gaze, he leaned back with his head almost touching the glass of the window. Outside, he could see the man scowling as if still pondering his new-found fortune, while finishing the second half of a bagel. But he was out of the rain, and that was the point. “I guess I just felt sorry for him, really, and when I find myself feeling glad for not being in another person’s shoes the only logical option seems to be to help them somehow.”

“I’ll bet that makes life even more depressing, having a moral obligation to help out nearly everyone you see.”

Leaf laughed, a light, breathy retort of amusement, “I’m not that well off.” He lifted his head back to face her, sitting in her white dress shirt with her hands clasped under her chin with her elbows propped up on the brown marble table. Her latte-blonde ringlet curls hung around her slender freckled face highlighted by her bright cyan mascara, and the faint tint of pink on her lips. “No, actually it keeps me openly excited about life. The more I look around, the more I feel connected, and the greater connection almost opens a window into the greatest high a person can get.” She raised a single painted eyebrow again, probably in disbelief, making him come close to bursting with insane giggling. “When you can get high by making someone’s life better by any degree, you begin to wonder just how the world ever came to prosthetic drugs in the first place.”

Her smile returned, that cosmic sign that everything would be okay, and she dropped her arms to the table to lean toward him. He found himself staring eye to eye with her, with only a white mug of still-steaming coffee between her elbows to scapegoat for him were he to make a quick glance down her shirt. Yet by the way things had been going, he was not about to ruin everything by trying to see if he could do as much without being caught. She shifted a little bit, from one elbow to the other and back, and he watched from the corners of his eyes as she drew closer to him. 

She wasn't testing his resolve, he realized, she was trying to get him to look.

No, he thought, adamantly sure that no girl in their right mind would try to sabotage things like that, I won’t do it! I will show her the honesty that she deserves. I’m here to see the pagan group, not act like a creep. But it burned, not allowing himself to peek. He could feel his sanity wane while she watched his eyes as one would a king cobra when trying to catch it with their bare hands. The unnerving draw that all men feel faced with this situation tugged at his very existence, yet he dared not listen.

One false step and things would turn far worse than they could by not seeing a hint of cleavage while in a cafe. Yet, he admitted, if I fight too hard it might look like something else entirely.

Finally the insanity won out and his eyes glanced at her lower neck--no lower, he told himself--revealing slight details to his mind that registered only when his eyes had locked on hers again less than a fragmented second later, like the solitary burgundy freckle just below her left clavicle.

As quickly as it had begun, Aria leaned back in her chair while she inspected him like a painting up for sale. He knew that he had failed the test she had set up for him, that flirting from here on was as pointless as talking to a child about quantum physics--some might get through, yes, but only a miracle would let them absorb any decent amount. Well at least she knows I’m straight, he mused.

Smiling, Aria stood from her seat and quickly scribbled something on the napkin under her mug before looking to the clock and back to him. She winced, “break time’s over, it seems.” She started walking back toward the counter while tying her apron back on, when she suddenly turned his way again, beaming. “Thanks for the coffee.”

With that she returned back behind the counter and jumped in to help her short, Hispanic coworker take care of a growing line of customers. 

Sure that he had just offended her, Leaf leaned forward to check the scribbles to see what she felt he’d needed to know before leaving him alone. He expected to find something along the lines of ‘real smooth’ or ‘guess what you’ll never see again’ written, but what he found instead almost stopped his heart. Written clearly in elaborate flowing cursive, three numbers held in parenthesis followed by seven others which all led to a glyph-like letter ‘A’ with the words ‘call me’ squished on the side.

He had done it. Somewhere between wanting coffee and being adventurous enough to try a new cafe, he had gained himself the greatest high a man could get. Love -- well, Leaf thought, a date, at least.

Then something tugged at Leaf, something deep within the confines of his recently-blown mind, and he turned to look toward the stage that he’d felt a compelling need to see. It was then that he saw just how busy Cafe Gruyer had gotten, with a growing line behind the order counter and even more simply waiting around in cliques. A woman with blonde dreadlocks stood near the door in a gray business suit and tie, a younger man in a wet baggy blue t-shirt sat by the musicians drawing on a pad, two middle-aged women in fluorescent raincoats flirted by the far window over a plate of steaming scones, and an older man with tribal beads around his neck and in his silvery hair talked with three young adults like old friends. Finally, a man with multiple brow piercings over his left eye and a white collared shirt under a purple sweater vest and a red workout jacket turned to the crowd behind him and began motioning for two others to begin combining tables near the man in blue.

The man turned to pay the tab when a quick head motion from Aria made him turn to Leaf and smile. He shoved a five into the urn-like tip jar, while the woman from the door ordered her own drink, and made his way through the crowd to Leaf’s table. His mocha brown ‘Leonardo DiCaprio’ style bangs and half-trimmed sideburns almost hid the bar-studs through his upper ear cartilage on both sides, revealed only when he quickly tucked the longer strands behind his ears. “So you’re Mr. Sagittarius?”

Leaf smiled and leaned forward to fold the note from Aria and tuck it away into his wallet, “I see you've been talking to Aria.” The man nodded. Going with the theme of the day, Leaf stuck out his hand for the man. “Call me ‘Leaf’.”

He grabbed Leaf’s hand firmly. “Daniel.” His eyes suddenly dropped to the pendant on Leaf’s neck and smirked. “I’m guessing you don’t work with the local evangelists in trying to ban us from meeting in public dining establishments.”

Thinking back to Jeff, Leaf realized that the man had certainly seemed to be trying to plant anti-polytheism seeds which, politically, made sense when looking into banning a group from their locally known events. The basic idea would be to get the public to despise a certain group and call it unwanted, and the law would be forced to abide if enough supported it. “No, actually I work with the National Park Service over at Muir Woods and Agate Beach.” He stood and hung his jacket over his elbow while they walked toward the combined tables where many from the crowd had begun seating themselves. “You?”

“Full-time bartender at Cuckoo’s down the street.”

Leaf laughed, throwing out a “wouldn't that be a nice job to have” and sat back down on another bench arrangement that, coincidentally, gave him cause to glance back over to Aria with whom he shared a long stare ending in a fit of uncontrollable glee. He turned back to listen in on conversations within the group about life, love, and everyday moments of hilarity, and let himself be drawn into yet another reason to call the night well-spent.