A Night at the Night Cafe

By Eric Rawlinson













The lights are dim, as is the mood, thinks Sarah, stirring her drink lazily with a finger, trying to fight the boredom that threatens once again to take her. She found herself in some backwater café for the third week in a row with nothing to do except look at the other occupants of the room. She does not jump this time when her companion, the cloaked and hooded figure beside her, cracks a bunch of the peanuts in his hand and drops the fragments to the table.

“Must you keep doing this?” Sarah protests, raising the drink to her mouth. Taking a whiff, she places it back down again without taking a drop.

His companion sifts through the cracked pieces, searching for the small red-lined nut. “I’m hungry and they still haven’t brought our food, therefore peanuts.” He pops one into his mouth.

“No,” Sarah grumbled, “I mean why do you keep doing this? Why do you come week after week to this place just to crumble peanuts, eat questionable food and drink a tiny shot of whiskey. Surely there are more livelier places.”

He tosses yet another nut up into the air and catches it in his mouth. He spies Sarah out of the corner of his eye. “Of course there are more lively places then this. But I like this place the best.”

“But, why?”

“You ask that question a lot you know,” Her friend smirks, but with a hint of annoyance in his voice, “This is the best place to observe.”

Sarah looks confused as the youth performs the stunt of tossing and catching again. “Observe what?”

The youth smiles, “Them.” He motions with his hands to indicate the far side of the room and the occupants of the rest of the café.

Sarah shook her head, “They’re not doing anything.”

“Of course they're not doing anything. But they’re still doing something by being here.” He continues, knowing that Sarah will only insist he should, “Take that man by the pool table in a white shirt. Of course it is the uniform of an employee. But notice how he looks at the pool table. He longs to join us, but more importantly, he wants us to join him in a game of pool, to enjoy the evening. But he knows that people come here to avoid one another, while at the same time, trying not to be alone.

“Such as those guys by the window. They have worked long and hard all day at jobs they do not like to support families they barely know. Lifeless and loveless they mingle here. Or the man asleep at his table. He’s here because he has no where else to go. And then there is the man in the corner with the girl. Little does she know, she’s just one of many girls that have been on his arm in the past week. And he is a special case himself. A true visionary of the light places, before slowly moving to the darkness. He’s a tortured artist who works for his art, and for his love. And he finds his muse in his darkness. And his heart.”

Sarah nods, understanding, “If I didn’t know better, I’d say that was…”

The figure nods, “It is. Now you know why I come here all the time. I wanted to see him. And to imagine, what it is like to be here.”

Sarah smiles appreciatively, “Why don’t you go up and talk to him?” She asks, “Ask him about his life. Ask him about how he feels.”

The figure sighs and shakes his head. “I cannot. Because the computer is not programmed to do that.”