January 2004 Issue - Essay # 1
Cupful
Friend
By Julie
Shapiro
I
watch him flirt with a young girl at a neighboring table and read the
newspaper. The news isn’t very interesting: the war this, the war
that, the budget this, the budget that, yada, yada, same old depressing
news. I listen to the man and his friend talk about psychiatric drugs,
how this person needs them, and how that person is a real case, and all
the while he’s taking capricious notes, and he starts flipping through
the notepad, looking at different pages and telling his friend the
little insights he learns, like when you attend meetings, to make sure
you get something out of it, know why you are there and have a way out 'cause so many of them are just a waste of time. I
stare at him, wondering if he’s a writer, knowing if I ask, it will
look like a pickup line, but curiosity and the warm inviting lips get
me. I listen some more as he talks about how at the party last night--and he turns to his
notes--he learned that it will be sad when he moves
to lose contact with his friends, how he’s learned so much about how
people connect forming relationships, that so few people really take the
time to listen, to question why people do things, what they think; they’re so serious,
worrying about the war, or their job, they’re
missing out on what it means to be alive. I
ask him what he’s writing. And he says they’re snippets of life, he
has four of these notepads, he carries them wherever he goes; they’re
a guidepost, his map to see where he’s gone and what he’s learned.
He tells me he’s a lousy writer, that it’s like exercise, he has to do
it every day if he doesn’t, he feels out of whack, not balanced. I
nod, knowing just how he feels and I smile, the warmest smile, realizing
how easy it is to fall in love for a moment, with an idea from a
stranger’s lips. And he asks what I’m thinking and I say, why is it
in a coffee shop we go from strangers to friends, it must be something
in the tea, and he laughs and says, then it’s in the coffee too, and
he says his name’s John, and gives me his email address. And I know we
won’t talk again, it’s a friendship joined by coffee and tea, two
souls connecting that needed to in that brief span of time, lasting a
mere cupful. And as I walk out the door, I smile at him, knowing the
next time I have a cup of tea at the coffee shop, I’ll wonder who’s
going to become the next cupful friend, sitting at my table, or instead
will I find just a stranger sipping coffee. |
|
Author's Biography I make a living as a freelance writer in San Diego. Published articles have appeared in health, computer, education, and commercial and residential real estate publications. Featured short stories have appeared in Mega Era Magazine, Millenniumshift, Orgease Journal, PacificNWpotpourri, Alternate Species, Story South, Science Fiction and Fantasy World, Universal Personality, and Word Riot. E-mail
Julie at julie@gotdot.com
|
Essay
Reviews! Site Reviews! We'd
like to know from our readers if they enjoy Seven Seas Magazine! Do
you have praise or complaints? Suggestions or ideas? Get notified! Would you
like to get notified as soon as new Seven Seas issues are published on
the Web? Tell a friend! Do you
enjoy the Seven Seas site?
|
|
Go back to the table
of contents
|
