An Encounter On An Afternoon In London

The young man had felt good that day. His hair was thick with gumption and his eyes were cleansed after a long sleep in a clean bed.

The light was shining in through the small window of the loft bedroom in the house on Harley Street, the young man had forgotten to close it after a late night Cigarette, and the birdsong danced through the opening as the sun sat still, halfway up the sky.

He rose and flipped on the radio, a portable Roberts he’d picked up in a charity shop, and avoiding the talk shows opted for the music station he favored. The French singer, Francoise Hardy, was playing; The delicate melody of ‘Voila’ reminded him of his honeymoon in France. He took a shower and made breakfast - oatmeal and apple with a cup of English tea - and reminisced about the days when his wife was still alive.

The young man often spent his days alone, working in a small office he rented above a textile shop, returning to his home with its lights off and microwave dinners in the fridge. More recently, he worked in his underwear at the kitchen table, or ignored emails, and lingered in bed. He was a Copywriter for a financial firm and had discarded his dreams of being a journalist, putting his morals on hold in the process, to spend more time building a family.

The rare sunshine of the late winter marked a positive change in the city’s atmosphere. He had, for the first time in weeks, found enough energy to leave the house and made the decision to walk to work. His route was lined with 4x4 cars, children playing, and laborers in their orange jackets working on the surface below. Ahead of him, a large man appeared to be crossing the busy street and was narrowly missed by a Toyota Prius that beeped at his obnoxious image. The tall man, paying no attention, glided off down an alley between two houses.

Something appeared to have fallen from the man's pocket and upon approaching it, after allowing the cars to move away, the young man found it was a small black notebook, empty, with the final page torn out. Placing the book into his pocket he found a piece of paper and pulled it out to reveal a red lottery ticket. His young woman used to laugh at him for his ritual but he would insist on its charitable cause, prompting her to laugh even more. He slid the ticket into the book and jumped out of the street as a car sped past.

The young man stopped by a cafe to inspect the book and check his numbers. The place was run by a small portly man who greeted him with a fine hello, a nod of the head, and a resolute smile. The young man ordered a coffee but the portly man insisted on him trying some cake. He said his wife had made it earlier that morning and since he seemed proud of his little family cafe the young man agreed and found a table by the window to watch life go by and wait for his coffee and cake.

The doorbell chimed and an androgynous figure wearing a large black coat and sunglasses with hair like a bird's nest approached the counter and ordered a coffee. Black with two sugars. The portly man offered him some cake and he appeared to follow the same charade that the young man had done, conceding as he had.

The tall slight figure floated over to the area where the young man was seated and asked in a drawl whether the chair was taken. Surprised as he was that the man requested this seat - there were at least 10 or 12 more in the cafe - the young man said no and so the tall man sat down in front of him.

“I heard the cake is good” said the tall man.

“Yes, me too” said the young man, smiling and glancing back to the portly owner who was approaching with the order.

“What is your name?”

The young man took a moment, then responded with his name.

“And yours?” He said.

The tall man responded with his. It sounded like a word but the young man couldn’t have spelled it if you held a gun to his head.

“I saw you earlier, you were almost hit by that Prius” said the young man.

The tall man looked around the room, scratched his forehead, and after a moment responded.

“Yes, I suppose I did”.

The young man glanced at the book on the table.

“I see you found a book”

“Yes, sorry, I think you dropped it. Please, have it back”

A moment passed as they both stared at the book.

Considering the abruptness of this mans small talk, the young man took a curious leap and said,

“Do you mind if I ask you a personal question?”

“Go ahead”.

“Is there a reason you tore the final page out?”.

The tall man sat back and placed his hand on his chin. A moment passed before he spoke.

“We are all assigned a book, all things play out inside this book, and I’m afraid that the end is already written into each one. I tore yours out.”

The young man searched into the man's black sunglasses seeing only the reflection of his young face. He placed the spoon off the saucer and onto the table to stop it rattling.

“This is not my book friend, it is yours. You were meant to find it. I intended you to find it. You see, the story we plan is never the one that is written. In reality, as the birds in nature do, we must accept each moment that presents itself to us and let go of what was planned. It is not what we write that matters, it has already been written, what matters it is how we read it.”

The young man put his coffee down.

“Now, do you mind if I ask you a personal question?” said the tall man.

“Ok” said the young man as he shuffled in his seat.

“What do you think someone with my delicate proportions and offensive attire is doing in a little workers cafe like this?”

The young man didn’t know what he meant or even how that question was personal. He didn’t quite know what he was doing in there either so it didn’t much matter to him.

Stumped, the young man took a breath and tensed his shoulders. His eyes searched the room for the portly owner but nothing was there except the till and salt and pepper shakers and a tv showing the news. The counter was clean and all the cake and food had been cleared away without a sound. Only cheap pictures of English landscapes adorned the white walls and the low hum of the street outside filled the room.

“I’m not sure what you mean” said the young man.

“Don’t you think it’s a little odd that we are both here? Me dressed like this, and you dressed like that, going about our business quite normally”.

The young man was wearing black jeans and a blue denim jacket with a white t-shirt underneath, granted, a big change to wearing underwear all day. The tall man was dressed in black with his bird's nest hair and heavy boots. He still hadn’t removed his sunglasses. The young man couldn’t even be sure that this was a man anymore, his, or her, voice morphed in a tone as androgynous as his dress.

The two men sat in silence. The young man perched upright and trying to focus on the goings on outside, and the tall man leaning back with his legs crossed over his thigh, flicking his ankle up and down.

The young man turned his feet slightly away from the tall man and looked into his coffee, seeing the white base of the mug through the black liquid at the end of his nose.

“Excuse me, I must be getting back to work” said the tall man.

He stood up and walked towards the door leaving the young man to stare at the passing cars and families with their prams and young people smoking their cigarettes outside shop fronts.

“Wait” said the young man, “who are you?”

“Me?” said the tall man as he span around on his heel and leant into the question.

”I’m just a working man talking to another working man in a working man's cafe”. Then he left through the door as it chimed.

Beside the door a flyer that read FAMILY BUSINESS CLOSING DOWN, PLEASE SIGN PETITION caught the young man's eye. To the left was a red poster promoting the national lottery. He rustled around in his pocket for his phone and opened the application to scan the ticket. The loading circle moved around steadily until it stopped on a bright red screen.

£20,000, shared jackpot.

The young man clenched the ticket in his hands and jumped up from his chair, breaking a piece of the wall off behind him.

He stumbled back down and took a gulp of coffee and a large bite of cake and made his way towards the door. He missed the handle, caught himself, and made his way through the door as it chimed.

He walked outside without looking back, closing the world of the quiet cafe with its peaceful English landscapes and white walls and small portly owner and stepped into the crisp summer air of the busy London street. Not knowing what to do with himself, or where to go, his pupils grew wide and his trembling hands held onto the black book with the ticket inside.

As he crossed the road a voice shouted from behind him. It was the portly man.

“Sir, you forgot to pay!”

And then another voice from the side, much louder.

The young man turned to see the portly man waving a receipt in the air.

And then.

His ears and eyes were muffled by a thud and his hair that was thick with gumption turned thicker as the blood seeped from the crown of his head.

His wallet flew out of his hand and opened on a couple of unpaid credit cards and a driving license that read his name and address and birthday.

His crooked arms and legs lay motionless as he blinked rhythmically, trying to focus on the sky. The portly man appeared in his view, looking over him, and calling for help. The young man turned over to his side and saw a woman frantically typing numbers into a phone. Behind her was a small black bird that stopped, looked back, and then glided down an alley between two houses.

The young man's blinking became slower. He reached to his side, picked up the book and pressed it against the portly man's stomach. His head fell back and he let go.

The last thing the young man heard was the engine of a car receding into the back of his mind as Francoise Hardy’s delicate melodies made their way through his memory. The bitterness of the coffee lingered on his tongue, his vision turned black over the portly man's resolute smile and a white pinhole of light appeared at the end of his nose until it enveloped him like warm French summer.

The busy London street stood still for a moment as the birdsong danced down from the trees and the sun sat still, halfway down the sky.