Avocado spread

I saw her through the rain.

It rained often here, though I didn’t notice it much anymore. In such a little town, the rain was inevitable. Expected even.

Most got used to it. They would find a place very much like where I am now – a coffee shop symphony with forks clattering and spoons clinging – and wait until the sounds of the downpour were muted or filled up with something else.

It was a nice little coffee shop, the kind that offered too many choices for too little an audience. I sat eating my avocado spread, tomato and havarti when I first saw her.

I don’t know why I saw her instead of a rock – the town was littered with them – but I did. I looked up from my sandwich and saw a beautiful thing. She was dancing there on the edge of the coast in a blue dress and black hair strewn across her back and she had no shoes on. She tiptoed on the grass.

But the café’s windows were poorly insulated. Fog built up at the edges. In a minute, I could no longer see her.

I rubbed my sleeve against the glass, but it did very little. It was too cold outside. Some of the rain turned to ice.

The warm inside only worsened the frost. It melted, then reformed stronger than before.

I moved my face close to the glass, and exhaled. My life breathed out of me into the bare space between my mouth and the window.

The glass heated up. I rubbed against it. Still nothing. I repeated. Breathe. Rub. Look. Breathe again.

The outside ice was scrapped away by the third rub. But despite my efforts, she wasn’t there anymore. All that was left was the grass upon which she stood.

And by the time I noticed it, the ice had come back and most of the grass had already reformed.

I went back to my sandwich, but it was cold in the cafe. Everyone else in the coffee shop must’ve cleared out too – I could only hear the tap-dancing of the rain.