The aroma of fresh coffee beans drifts from over the counter to where I am sitting. It is morning, very early for me to be up, and a rare occurrence to be in public at this time of the day. My disheveled hair falls down over my face, still not low enough to cover the bags under my eyes. It is dark. Last night was a sleepless one of tossing and turning, induced by an onset of loneliness. The words “It is not good for man to be alone” keep resonating through my head as I sit in the bustling coffee shop. The same words that echoed all night and into the black hours of the morning; the cold, lonely hours of the morning.
My thoughts wander to the first man, and realize how he had to give a part of himself to finally have someone to love him. Just as the hand of God touched him, so I needed a touch. Every day might as well have been just as dark and dismal and lonely as that morning though, for I had nobody to shine my love on, and nobody willing to spare me a few rays.
I gave blood for the first time yesterday. Perhaps this is one of the reasons that my night was so miserable. I felt like my essence was draining from me. It was a good cause though, saving someone’s life. Blood is what gives us life, so in a sense, when I gave my blood away, I gave a little bit of my life away to save someone else’s. A model of love is the willingness to sacrifice one’s own life for the life of someone else. I have plenty of love yet receive none. I am Type O, and any blood type can receive blood from me, but if I were to get into an accident and need blood, I could only receive blood from another Type O person. Ironic how the love cannot be returned once it is given.
The door slowly opens. I blink my dreary eyes at the blinding light coming from the rising sun which silhouettes the shape entering the shop. Her slender form stops in the middle of the shop as she peers meekly around, looking for a table. She spots me and I conspicuously turn away, pretending not to notice. Her angelic figure glides past my otherwise empty table, and me. My heart sinks. Her arms hold her laptop across her chest like a young schoolgirl with pigtails holds a binder at grade school. No young girl is this though; she is a beautifully handcrafted woman.
She sets her bag down on a table near to me. She seems to know the girl seated there, and they exchange quick formalities before she goes to the counter to make her order.
“The usual” I hear her say through the clatter.
The cashier yells over his shoulder, “Black coffee.”
My melancholy overwhelms me again and all hope seems to be lost. A cloud drifts over the rising sun as if to reaffirm my circumstance.
My full attention is focused on the individual grinds at the bottom of my cup. Oh, how lonely they must be. Out of the corner of my eye, I see a large, round man in a neatly pressed black suit stumble on the corner of a chair leg and send a cup of scalding coffee all over the table where the girl’s friend and her bag sit. A deep curse and a shrill shriek interrupt the serene shop. Chaos ensues. Out of chaos there is no order, unless the hand of God is involved.
The girl is searching again, her coffee in one hand, her wet and now stained computer case in the other. I make it obvious that I am clearing a place for her at my table, but she shyly avoids all eye contact with me until she is sure that there are no empty spaces. Picked last, just like always. She stands in front of me; she practically shines. The cloud passes.
“Can I sit here?”
“Uh…yea, go for it.” I stammer. Nonchalant as can be. My heart is pounding.
There is nothing to say, nowhere to begin. I become interested in the coffee grinds again.
Soon, she is gone. Not even a name.
Twenty minutes pass. They pass like my whole life has, quickly and without event. I wearily drag myself out of the seat and into the quickly warming day. Down the street I solemnly walk. An ambulance blares by.
There she is, sprawled out on the ground. Paramedics scurry around her. A car sits, partway off the road; a soccer mom stands with tears streaming down her face, hands cupped over her mouth, and kids peering from around her. A skid mark is blackened into the road as a reminder.
A week later, I find myself at the hospital, looking for this unknown girl. Walking down the endless halls, searching for a girl whose name I don’t know. A doctor rushes by me, his hand pushing me out of the way and into a doorway that I would have passed by. I nearly spill the cups of coffee I am carrying. A doctor and a nurse come out talking in hushed voices.
“She is a lucky girl, the transfusion right after the accident saved her life.”
I stick my head in the room. There she is, propped up on a group of pillows. I walk in and she looks up.
“Hi, I am Adam. Do you like your coffee black?”
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