Eminent Domain

Before it happened I did a lot of normal things.  My girlfriend and I would sit at the same café at the same time on the same days with the same people.  It was nice and when spring would come and we’d sit on the porch.  Sometimes I would go without her and see the prettiest girl working there.  Then she’s sit there by herself reading or looking at a notebook. She look at me when I was alone and smirk.  I’d smirk too sometimes making a remark that I would laugh at.  Don’t know if she heard that.  When she was there we were strangers and I would just stare at my table.  The porch had the most interesting people there.  The baker, the dancer, the writer, a furniture maker, a singer, and me. We’d spend hours talking about all sorts of great things.  But a new face emerged daily during our visits.  A tall, simple man, always grinning and always speaking in such short sentences when I was around.  Later on my girlfriend would tell me all about the wonderful tales he spoke of whenever they met.  The Amazon, his trip to the Yukon, the Everglades, the wines of Europe.  Tales I wanted to be able to tell and he never ran short of them.  Still while he beguiled the Baker and the writer and the singer, I’d stare off at the pair of eyes behind the book, behind the counter.  I felt safe but she’s the worst thing to happen to me.  But nothing was going on.  I yearned for another woman but it didn’t matter.  I loved my girlfriend.  I loved her so much it hurt.  So much so that I’d hate to be around her.  Hate to see the person she had become.  Hate to see other people seeing her.  In our years together I’d learned what I wanted about her and made her the person she was in my thoughts.  But around them she was another stranger at a café.  So I changed my routine and was never there when she was.  Our friends never saw us together and I was fine with that.  It happened though.  My usual Wednesdays I’d light a cigarette on my porch and while halfway finished stare at the books in the window, stroll past the hot foods in the windows and put it out on the doorstep while waving at my friends.  But my bed was empty this morning.  The streets had no sounds to them.  No smells from the food.  The café, wasn’t empty, it was full.  Full of strangers.  The Baker, the Writer, the Furniture maker, the Singer all gone.  All but her, I waved and she turned away.  The room apologized with their gaze.  It was so obvious what was going on.  Me, I just stood there, and I felt small.  So fucking small.