woman in a cafe

I sit at the same table, in the same cafe, thinking the same
thoughts. I try to work out, if I don't intervene, how long I have left
to live. One hour. One day. One month. One year. Or two, or three, or
just a few seconds. If I made the decision then I would have the power
to determine this for myself. I could leave here, stand up, push my
chair back and walk out, letting the door swing shut behind me
finalising my decision, never to let the door swing open and allow me
to enter the same cafe and sit at the same table at the same hour day
after day after day. I could walk home. Walk through the park and watch
the children playing, the lovers kissing and the men rushing between
appointments and mistresses - a cliched type of journey home. Or I
could stand outside the cafe and hail a taxi, slip into the back street
and listen to the endless stream of chatter taxi drivers are supposed
to assault their passengers with. Or I could find a hotel - cheap or,
even better, expensive - and walk into the bar, order a drink from the
young bar tender and wait for someone to pick me up, perch myself on
one of the stools, half on - half off, one stilettoed foot dangling
just above the floor, the other resting on the foot rest. Waiting.
Waiting for the man to take me upto his room and fuck me into thinking
that life is worth staying alive for, that an orgasm between silken
sheets is all I need to allow myself to continue living. Or I could
just go home, stand on a chair, slip a noose around my neck and kick
the chair away, feel the rope tighten leaving the burn marks for the
coroner to find. Death by asphyxiation. Or I could sit here and think,
counting the seconds, wondering when it could end if I did
nothing.

She always sits at the same table. Orders the same drink. Sips it the
same way and stares at the pictures on the wall, the ones with the
price tags which the local artists are hoping to sell. Occasionally she
smokes.

Occasionally I smoke a cigarette. People say if you smoke then you
bring yourself closer to death, each lungful of smoke you in- and
exhale is one lungful closer. I breathe the smoke out, first letting it
curl from my nostrils, then opening my mouth and breathe out gently,
rolling the smoke from my body. I say we are all one second closer to
death the longer we are alive. Each breath we take is one breath less
for everyone, whether filled with smoke or not. Everyone is obsessed
with living. Living as long as possible. Not wanting to cease. Not to
feel the darkness close around them, have their eyes closed permanently
and forever, seeing nothing but the blackness of an endless indigo
night - because it is never completely black behind your eyelids. I tap
the cigarette against the edge of the chunky glass ashtray which has
been placed on every table in this cafe. The ash drops in. I endeavor
to smoke a cigarette down to the filter, watching each part of the
white tube dissolve and disintergrate into a grey formless substance as
light as paper but not as useful. Unlike in the movies and people who
pretend they are smokers, people who take a few lungfuls and stub the
thing out, never properly though - always leave a half smoked cigarette
smoking in the ashtray because it is difficult to stub out an
unfinished cigarette. I hate a smoking cigarette, espcially if you
can't pick it up and smoke it yourself. Instead of stubbing it out
these people should leave it settled, resting in one of the holding
gaps, usually one to each 'side', of an ashtray. That way someone else
could come along, pick it up and enjoy the thing they have decided to
refrain from enjoying.