Of Things Unseen {an abstraction on the cup}

The styrofoam is warm in my hands. It imprints on my fingertips, a liquid story of contents unseen.

Steam rises like prayers, fogging out the world as I draw the cup close, closer to my lips. I inhale the fluid decadence. Wishing I could injest it just as slowly, as tangibly, as it escapes - wafting upward, upward. Always the scent lingering somewhere on the edges of time. I close my eyes.

A chair skids loud across the flecked tile floor. It wakes me from my drifting.

To the left, three men sit at a table set for four. One is slick bald. He looks like a preacher to me. Oh, not a preacher-comb-the-hair-over, wear-a-tie, King-Jimmy-in-hand preacher, but one of these cool guy preachers. The kind that sport those trendy, dark-rimmed glasses and the baldness without looking older than 40.

I run the tip of my middle finger along the rim of my cup. Circling, circling. My coffee is still too hot to drink, but I've nothing to do but sit with it and with my imagination. A mind at play among the rising fog.

Their conversation is too low for me to make out, and I'm glad I don't hear it. I think I'd rather invent it. . . .



Honored and thrilled to be sharing the rest of this story with Nacole at six in the sticks today. She has a great little link-up going there called #concretewords, for which I am guest posting this week. The prompt is "the cup" - come join us there, won't you?



Linking with Jennifer, Beth, and Heather.