Secrets Between Us.

- Chapter 1 -

THE sun was shining through the windows and I watch as particles of dust drift in the air every time the door opened. And every time the door opened, I hear the happy jingle of the bell as yet another body crammed into the suffocatingly small space.

It should be a crime to let this many obnoxious, coffee-deprived people into such a tight place. Who could possibly care about the drivel that forever spilled from their mouths? Were their lives really that interesting that they had to drawl about it from the bottom of their smoke-riddled lungs?

I didn't think so. I've been sitting here; watching. Waiting. Listening.

Only this week, I learned that Rebecca – two seats down from me, in fact – was caught smoking crack before her shift at the hospital. Now she busied herself behind the pages of a newspaper, circling vacancies with a highlighter which was reaching the end of its days.

Today, the colour of that highlighter is fluoro yellow. Yesterday, it was hot pink. The day before, it was a shade of blue which I do not know the official name of. Let's just call it ocean blue. Or sky blue. The ocean reflects the sky, right?

There is no detectable pattern in her colour choice.

This same week I also learned that Mary-Alice was caught with her skirt down in the boss's car by none other than her partner. Based off this morning's conversation, I wonder if he would forgive her, yet again, when she tells him that she's carrying her boss's child. I am sure I will know the ending to that saga in good-enough time. They may even come into contact with me down this slippery journey of theirs.

Mary-Alive. Mary. Fucking. Alice.

That is what you get for having legs wide open in the hopes of getting a promotion.

Of course, I don't know this.

Well, I do. But only through listening whilst I was minding my own business, having my own drink and thinking about the rigours of my own life. If people hadn't spoken so loudly, I wouldn't have picked up on these things and I wouldn't have allowed them to become my muse.

Humans are an interesting species. And the more I sit and watch, the more I feel my faith slip in humanity.

This particular morning, I elected to sit in a corner booth, obscured by some fake plant which was supposed to look real but it really missed the mark. It was the same plant I stared at every day over the duration of the last twelve months. The leaves had stayed green whilst the seasons changed outside and whilst my clothing choice followed suit. It was the type of green that you'd expect someone who was colour-blind and never saw the true colours of nature to pick. It wasn't exactly a realistic, natural green.

Despite the taxing and somewhat frivolous people that inhabited the joint, I really have a soft, growing-spot for this particular coffeehouse, with its dust, fake plants and all.

Not for the supposedly quaint, hip look that the owner was going for – with exposed wooden beams, polished concrete floors, a community library stacked in a corner, local and overpriced products arranged around the counter and quiet music drifting over the speakers. It was not even for the fineness of the brew, the price-point or that a lot of aspirations were born at these worn, wooden tables. But for the variety of humans that walked through that door every morning.

Slowly, over the days of my morning ritual, I became somewhat invested in their lives.

Each one of them was different, like the individual snowflakes that fell from the heavens during winter.

They were unique.

Hopeful.

Twisted.

Broken.