(Inspired by Edward Hopper's Nighthawks)
The coffee stings my tongue. It's four in the morning and the city has deserted me.
Can you feel me, thinking of you?
The old man looks to me, questioning what I'm doing here, in my elegant evening gown. My hair is still made up, my make up is heavy and has not faded yet. I look like I did when saw him for the last time, when I saw you for the last time. You wore that uniform so very proudly.
The drunk man sitting opposite me burps. He smiles to his ghosts, but not at me. Do I hate him for it? Perhaps I should. I'm the only woman here, and this bastard has not deigned to look at me once.
In swans a man with a crooked nose. He's too relaxed, too sure of himself. He comes and stands behind me. I can hear him lighting a cigarette. He does not offer me one when he takes the seat next to mine. I do not gaze at him like I should.
I need you, my eyes should say.
Take me away, my lips should say.
I look at my nails. Someone is playing some part or other of Chopin's Nocturnes.
The man leans in closer, but still does not speak. He rests his hand on my thigh. I do not look at him. Can I encourage him with stillness, hatred even? How dare he touch me. And you're not here.
He is the only man alive for miles and miles. The only man who has so much as looked at me in months. I'm powerless.
The old and the drunk exchange a few murmurs, then a few sniggers. They make me sick to the stomach and I want to leave. I do not. I sit there with my unwanted companion, waiting.
He seems to have all the time in the world. If I let him love me tonight, will you come back to me after all? Or will you be disgusted and distracted and die in some horrible way because your mind was elsewhere, on me?
On how we were together?
This man's nose intimidates me. He wears it with pride. Maybe it was you who punched it until it was broken. Maybe you knew that I would not last long in this brutal and cruel world, not without you. My protector and knight in shining armour.
But where are you now?
Is it many miles away or are you hiding somewhere near?
Will I see you if I turn around?
The man speaks. He tells me about desire, his desire for me. He tells me things I used to hear you say. He tells me that we'll all be gone tomorrow and that this is the last night on earth. I wanna be yours, he whispers. I can hear the words, but I hear nothing else. It is as if there was no humanity left in him. He too had loved and lost. And perhaps his love is spying on us now, plotting to kill us after we have given in to each other.
How and when will I know where you are?
He strokes the velvet on my dress and compliments it.
The other man has gone silent. He stares into the darkness of the diner, at his hands. Has he murdered, I wonder.
My hand moves closer to this man with the crooked nose. He sees it, but does not move. He thinks this is a game of want and wanting, of prolonged desire.
Poor fool.
No more nights like these, I beg you. We will never go out at night, not in the cold and not in the warm.
We'll stay together, in our little bubble, as if there was no tomorrow.
No yesterday, no today and no tomorrow.
