Of love and hate

This really isn't a story, it is just a thought...... I like it ... for some unknown reason

There is a small coffee shop on the corner of Michigan and Shiawasse. A neon sign proclaiming GIBSON'S flickers on and off in the front window, its green coils reminding me of lime taffy stretched to its brink and layed out happhazardly on a table to make the semi-recognizable outline of a coffee cup. It sits under the parking garage where my vehicle always is parked; third level, two dollars and fourty-two cents. It looks as if the entire building trembles as the cars go up and down, in and out like bees buzzing from flower to hive. The shop itself looks oddly out of place. Wide reflective pannels of glass stand out against the crumbling, graffitti covered brick front. In a flourescent pink the words "F**k you," yell out to everyone that walks or drives by, calling to their eyes to read the unimaginative message. Condesation forms like a veil on the big windows from the many people going in and out, sipping Chia tea and Mocha Java, reading their notes and books, browsing the web and typing out papers; the thirty some number of people inhaling and exhaling. I walk across the street, my hands in my pockets of my jacket and a scarf wrapped securily around me, the fringe fluttering in the cold winter's breeze. You can see some intellectual guy in the window, stroking his chin like an important scholar as he lifts a paper to his eyes and ever so often scratches out a phrase here a word there, sitting at a tall table his feet resting on the supports of his tall chair. He looks as if he were posing for one of those magaziens, you know the ones that show people as perfect, smart, graceful, beautiful, and happy even though they are sticking their finger down their throat and putting the white lady up to their noses just to keep their life, just to feel alive. I push the door open and listen to the quaint little bell chime to alert the cashier and the people behind the counter that another customer is now lined up waiting to be served hot coffee and fake smiles. I acknowledge the greeting of the super happy employees and sit down at the first table that I can see is available. I avoid eye contact with anyone as I rummage through my purse for a notebook that I know I left in the car but somehow wish it would magically appear, no such luck. I sigh and pull out a folder that contains some papers and my portfolio all weighted down with dissapointment and half-a*s effort. I dig in my purse again, this time producing a green ball-point pen, my favourite pen. I turn my already- graded -portfolio over to expose the white under-belly of the clean side and place the tip of my pen to the paper. I sit there, looking, thinking, willing my hand to move to the always welcome flow of ideas, yet I am not surprised to find my well of imagination is dry, barren as the dessert sea, just as it has been for over five months. I grit my teeth together and ignore the sickening sound, it reminds me of when I was a child and I would carelessly get sand in my mouth, the grains rubbing against my teeth and getting stuck in the little grooves and crevaces, crunching everytime I bit down, sending shivers down my spine. I hate not being able to write, I loath it with all my being, with all that I have, almost as much as I love my parents. Love and hate are two in the same I always say, they both are passionate and most of the time one leads to the other.