CoffeeBeanShop

Caffeine and Smoke

by Allison E. Bailey (bio at end of story)

I write the word "ALONE" in huge scrawled black ink letters across the entire page of my notebook because it looks right this way and I am feeling as if I live not entirely in reality. I tear the page out of the notebook and press the ink into my palm and when I let the paper fall to the floor there is a crude black "O" of recycled ink stamped on my skin. I catch the stare of the boy four seats to my left and out-stare him, forcing him to pretend he had only been staring into space and not directly at me. Boys are not the same as they used to be. They must be from one of two worlds: black-leather-tight-jeans-smoky-eyes-piercing-gaze-silent-enough-to-be-noticed OR baggy-khaki-navy-blue-forest-green-corduroy-flannel-nondescript-faded-baseball-hat-loud-enough-to-be-noticed. Either way, they have to work at being boys. This boy is of the former type.

I check my watch periodically, not to see what time it is but to make sure it's still ticking. The woman at the front of the room is jumping up and down and pushing her frizzy dyed-blonde bangs back feverishly, yelling some nonsense about epistemology and such. She likes artistic people who say things they don't understand but sound high and mighty saying them. This is not, of course, how she thinks of it. The smell of coffee and cigarettes rules this room and caffeine and nicotine can kill you.

My t-shirt clings to me with sticky sweat under a thick wool sweater but if I take the sweater off I will get the chills and I swear this constant scurrying from out of the snow and into the sauna-like classrooms is going to give me pneumonia. Now and then I get these attacks of acute optimism in which everything clicks into place. This is not one of those times. A few days ago I almost said something in this class. I felt somehow connected to what they were saying. Of course, that very identification silenced me.

I wonder if the cat I saw prowling around my front steps this morning is a stray.

I feel the way I did when I was seven years old, playing hide-and-seek - when I hid in the woods, stuck between two boulders, and they all forgot to find me.

The class chuckles philosophically, intellectually, at something the woman at the front of the room has said. She beams and nods her head, approving of their approval. I wonder if their laughter is real and if this is really the way they think - in psychoanalytic hypotheticals. They can't lie all the time. Some of it must be real. So how much of the fakeness is fake, I wonder.

My watch is still ticking and it is time to go home. The woman at the front of the room is handing back the papers and I get a B minus again. I suppose this is pretty good considering I don't speak her language and I exist in a different world and all. Still, I think there must be some way to break the code.

I walk out of the classroom thinking of the conversation I overheard at the coffee shop this morning. I am shivering through my wool sweater as I stare at the people passing by me one by one and I wonder what their secrets are. Some of them are trying to out-stare me but they can't. I don't have any secrets.

I feel a hand on my back and I jump. Shivers are running up and down my legs and arms non-stop now as I turn around to see who's there. It's the boy I out-stared today.

"I didn't know if you needed this," he says, holding out the sheet of paper that had fallen from my palm. I look at him curiously for a moment; I imagine pretending I have no idea what he's talking about; I imagine telling him to throw it out; I imagine saying, "Screw you," and I imagine what he'd do in response. I wonder if he read the word on the paper and if he means something psychoanalytical by that statement. If I needed this...

I glance down at the "O" on my palm. He looks down and sees it and I stare at the top of his lowered head. He looks up again and catches me staring at him and I refuse to pretend I was staring into space.

"No," I say, but I reach out to take the paper from him anyway. I want to throw it away myself. When he gives it to me his hand touches my hand. His skin touches my skin.

And then I'm alone in the hall, and I pass by the trashcan, and instead of throwing out the paper I crumple it up and hold it as tight as I can in my fist as I walk into the outside.

© Allison E. Bailey. All Rights Reserved.

Finalist - Caffeine and Smoke by Allison E. Bailey

Allison Bailey is a recent college graduate, working in theater management in New York City. She writes fiction and poetry, and is currently also researching and writing a project on film adaptations of Henry James novels. Allison lives in Brooklyn, NY.

Editor's Note: "Caffeine" was chosen for the first round for the following reasons: Deceiving title that had us believing this would be a story about a bar...strong lead-in with excellent description, POV and tone. Excellent writing, correct punctuation, no spelling errors. Consistent tone throughout the story, believable with super contrast between outer boldness and inner fragility in the main character. An ending that made us twinge inside. Although this piece is descriptive to current generations, it has plenty of universal cross-generational appeal. Slender touches of intimacy that are appropriate to the story. Well-polished.

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