Litanies

-The sun hides behind the clouds, leaking pathways of light in a soft diffused manner. The city seems quiet, only the sound of traffic as cars speed by, in lonely procession. My eyes wear a heavy coat and my eyelids nearly collapse. Smoke waves through my fingers as the cigarette in my hand turns to ash and I drift in and out of half dreamt dreams. In the interspersed moments of consciousness in hazy thoughts, I wonder about the rose’s robe and the messages carried on a butterfly’s wings. On days like these, when the sky has lost its color, time seems an orphan, life’s bastard child. Even as the birds chirp by midday and it’s hard to place the morning.
Like usual, around this time, on days like these, I grab Neruda’s litanies and a legal pad and leave the place of sleep. Fallen to a cliché, but I need coffee. One of the small indulgences that well compliments my addiction to creating clouds. My habit is usually to bounce about town a bit, before stopping at whatever coffeeshop is chosen for the day.
The small shop, fliers on the walls announcing events in the past and others quickly ensuing as well as the distinct aroma of coffee syrups lingering in the air. There is still a vague memory of that space, within the four walls with paintings hanging. I’d been there, once before, several years earlier. As I make my way to the counter, I feel an oneiric sensation as I recognize the menu board from a half dreamt dream. The sensation is akin to the dizzying out of focus feeling of the morning cigarette, when I was young.
I wring my eyes with my eyelids and stack the counter with the litanies. When I open my eyes, it’s a distinct world, without the otherworldly sensations and two blue glistening eyes peering at me from behind the stack.
“I read him,” the soft voice bounces off the litanies.
I follow the small frame, as she reaches over and grabs a large cup, as if she’s already decided that whatever I order will be no less than what fits in a large cup. Then she looks back at me with a sudden flourish that quickly becomes neutral, and she continues,
“in school, I read him. Well, we read him. Now I only remember the name,” and she smiles.
It’s almost like a dream, without the aura of dreaming. It’s like those predestined moments that almost mean something, if you let them, and I only smile. She looks at me, with a certain reticence and half smiles.