True Love of Coffee

I lost myself, if not for a brief moment of my life, the very thought of failing to fulfill the burden I had sworn to was daunting and inescapable.

The tapping of my fingers on the delicate carvings of the staircase left me wandering in ideas about right and wrong, good and evil, and exactly where I stood amongst the other pawns of this game I had been sucked into.

The noise of the crowd below was relaxing in the strangest of ways, it was almost loud enough that I couldn’t hear my own thoughts. Watching the ballroom from my vantage allowed me to see everyone trying to act casual in such a formal setting. The ladies were all beautifully adorned by lavish dresses, sparkling gems, and amazingly expressive attitudes. The men tried to compete with the ladies, wearing fine Italian tuxedoes and offering the most practiced responses that only a ivy-league graduate could hope to remember.

Yet I was here looking down on them, wearing a fine Italian suit and pretending to understand those same nuances. I’d rather be sitting in my jeans, spending time with my family surrounding a board game and sharing a few heartfelt jokes.

How I ended up here I didn’t know.

The waiter, butler, or guy carrying the food tapped me on the shoulder. I asked him what his title was as I grabbed something that looked like a shrimp of his tray. He said “Evening auxiliary, good sir” and walked away.

What the hell is an Evening Auxiliary?
I guess  that I would never know.

The flavor of the shrimp was melting in my mouth, I didn’t dare question what a cracker with shrimp had cost tonight. It probably would have made me laugh uncontrollably or become sick to my stomach. I just had to accept this suit I was wearing was only a temporary requirement to surviving the evening.

As I sipped the last of the red wine from my glass, I saw Katherine walk into the ballroom. I wasn’t the only one who noticed. She had an amazing presence to her and she was comically poking me with sweet irony by wearing that red gown I had given her on our anniversary. She always knew how to dress the part and to attract attention to herself.

I should have remembered our connection was a strong one, she spotted me within seconds a hundred yards away. I don’t know how she always did that, but I couldn’t complain that a beautiful lady could find me in the crowd.

I just wish that I had some idea of what I going to tell her about what I did tonight. I hope she would forgive me, or at least understand that none of us have any choices anymore.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 27th, 2006 at 9:40 pm and is filed under Creative Writing, The Looking Glass. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.