Between Waking and Sleeping

Abstract

This is what happened to me today: sitting in the coffeeshop before work, I glanced through the wide front window out at the patio and saw a girl crying on the steps. I looked around behind me: the usual action, a few people walled in be hind newspapers at widely-separated tables, a pair of lovers with their heads bent together over photographs, the green-aproned girls behind the counter busying about with trays of pastries and the cappuccino machine. An indis tinct string melody on the speakers, a warm scent of coffee and cinnamon; the typical effects of the day; and on the steps outside, unnoticed by anyone but myself, this crying girl?this sobbing girl, actually, her sleek black-haired head bent down toward her clenched knees, her sUm shoulders shaking be neath a black velvet suit jacket. She wore open-toed shoes and her toenails were painted the color of earth. She was twenty-two, twenty-five, something Uke that. I watched, mesmerized, as sadness poured out of her Uke water onto stones. Through the glass I could hear Uttle besides the more strident of street noises: sirens, rumbling trucks. Why would she just sit there and sob? I won dered. Isn't there somewhere she can go? Someone she can call? It was clearly about to rain; the clouds were dark and heavy, the air thick with breeze. The girl cried and cried.