Random rants & raves #2

I'd say she's going on seventy. Stopped dyeing her hair about three years ago, when she decided it was childish. Fur coat neatly hung on the chair next to her. It's the chair that's wearing the coat now. Fur on leather on wood on concrete on dirt on rock on molten core. Round and round they go, disparate. You can tell the fur is real by the way she's resting her chin in hand. She's polite, focusing hard on her friend's monologue, looking convinced that what she's hearing matters. Every seventh blink though, her eyes lose focus as she returns forty-seven years in the past, to the three days spent with Jacquelin on the French Riviera. Her friend - the monologist - is wearing a grey woven beret, palms intertwined, elbows on the table, leaning slightly forward as she speaks. She's describing upcoming funeral arrangements and the choice between different kinds of urns. She's gotten it down to a selection of two - but has doubts if they will like any of them.

The café isn't one I'd particularly enjoy going to. It's near my old apartment and I had some time to spare so I drifted in it's general direction. I hadn't planned on stopping, but there was an open parking space, so I pulled over. The best thing about the place is the table in the corner with the glass sides. A proper view of the street with today's added undying charm of falling snow.

On the way here I heard the radio say the German ultra-right AfD just hit a historic 16% support in the polls. It reminded me of a speech the Hungarian president made the day before, about how Europe is in the midst of an Islamic immigrant invasion. One more step leading to the fall of the West. As Jim Morrison stated, the west is the best. All you need to do is get here and we'll do the rest. The End was 51 years ago. Now it's Ed Sheeran holding my hand over the radio, leading me back to the coffeeshop where the smell of cinnamon suddenly feels overwhelming. Sickeningly sweet. I could swear Ed's sounds of longing felt like they were consumed by vacuum as soon as they were uttered. No reverberation. No echo. The sensation pulled me of my cloud of thought and sat me back across the fur and the beret. I'm trying to climb back on it now, but when I look up all I see is a giant black steampunk spider with way too many legs shedding a modern glow on an upside down world.

I wonder about my drink for a moment, and then decide it's time to go. The voice on the radio is back and apparently we also missed our chance for the Olympic quarterfinals in hockey. The goalkeeper let his guard down for a second, and BAM! that was it.