Conversations Overheard: Lobster Mac & Cheese
I'm never lonely, not anymore, not even in my own heart. I wouldn't say I'm a Psychic, but when I'm around people, it's like I have a flock of birds floating in bubbles; when they pop, I hear a whisper, a secret feeling. I heard this one conversation about a week ago and not but two tables over. I could feel a swell of anxiety and brewed annoyance hovering around someone named Ophelia. Names usually don't come that easily, but I could tell she was proud of hers - it took a while to choose, as it's not a thing most people get a chance to pick.
The moody candle adorning her table had burnt itself out. So she fumbled through her pockets and grabbed an elderly looking lighter, and relit it. Her eyes trembled slyly and self-consciously as if the soon-to be-divorcees and underpaid wait staff meant her a caging judgement. Then, as if obeying her fears, the waiter gave her a strange look as he walked up to her.
"Will it be dinner for one? I can start you off with a beer. We have a wonderful fermented lumberjack lager."
"Oh, no, if only," she replied, "I'm waiting for someone. When she gets here, we'll order. But, um, thanks anyway though.”
Her feelings were distant as they spilled over, whining out. She was excited but also sad. With each breath, her sighs want to make love to the smell of frozen reheated pastries, scents taking the form of characters stolen from street graffiti. But all of this is only visible to me. If she could see them for herself, perhaps she'd find some company in her feelings, in place of her lonely intermittent daydreams. She and I share a shutter, and with that, as if it were a cloud, we both blow that idea away. How long can you wait for something that you don't want to arrive?
As the waiter moved to the next table, Ophelia adjusted an envelope sat below a pack of gummy bears, who rustled in excitement. Neither her nor her love the type to go for boxes of chocolate hearts, she meant to give them as a joke Valentine. She then moved to check the time, awkwardly struggling as the craft glue from her morning disguised her fingerprint.
She then almost unknowingly opened up the Troli bag. Playing with her food was a habit she never cared to break. She pinched a red one and moved it in a hop past a breadstick archway.
She played with the red gummy bear, bending it as if to give a knowing nod while it walked up to another (blue) gummy bear, "You feeling any better?”, she made it say, “You know I hate saying it, but I do love you. “
The blue gummy bear would have smiled if it had more than a shallowly-etched gummy indent for a mouth, "But, you know I love when you say it, and what do you think, Three days out and I only just took off the med bracelet."
"Oh yeah, I'd noticed you were writing all over it. What was that about? I mean not that it isn't a "you" thing to do.”
"Yeah, I figure if I'm going to wear something, it might as well wear me. Still you'd think I would have torn it off as soon as I checked out."
"I don't think it's that much of a deal, you just need to give it all a break, you're out, you should act like it.”
"Maybe, but discharge papers only say so much. It's like I don't know where my feelings end and I begin sometimes. It's one look or thought and I'm lost. I've thought about it and what I need to do is settle back in at home, check my own roots for a bit.”
"That's what I was thinking, get back to basics, just you and me, our roots intertwined and shit. I was thinking, that chimp who writes I've been following is going to be at a conference at USC. It's only a three-day drive, maybe we should get away for a bit.”
"Yeah, maybe.”
The blue gummy bear shrunk a bit, as Ophelia squeezed its jelly, butterfly-filled belly.
Back in reality, Ophelia sighed out audibly. She squished the gummy lovers together and held them over the candle. They embraced as they melted in sweet artificial colors swirl as streaks of reds would've teared up, torn off, and overtaken the blues.
Ophelia took the letter off the table, folding it into an origami crow before crumbling it and putting it in her pocket. She got up and left the restaurant just as my lobster mac and cheese arrived.
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