“Immolation?”
“Huh? What?” said Branwen as she suddenly sat upright and rubbed her eyes. She squinted through the fluorescent lights up at the man standing by her table.
“I said, ‘Is this seat taken?’”
She blinked at him several times and then shook her head. Was she saying no? Was she trying to wake herself up? By the time he sat down, she couldn’t remember. Where was she? She saw a sign about bagels. Was she downtown?
“Are you from around here?” She stared right through him and his leather jacket. She tried to think. “I just got into the city myself.” She tried again. “I don’t think I’ll ever get used to the traffic here.” She finally did it.
“What day is it?” she managed to slur out.
He tilted his head to one side and said “It’s been Saturday for about two hours now. Why?”
She looked around frantically, trying to grab onto any conscious thought that she could. “Saturday?” She went to the airport to surprise him on a Saturday. “Two hours. . .” She thought for a moment and then remembered getting up at two A.M. to get to the airport in time for his flight. “That bastard got off the plane with another woman.” She was suddenly very aware of everything going on around her. “I’ve been awake for a week!”
“I suspected that, but I was more strongly leaning towards thinking you were on some sorts of drugs.”
She finally looked at him instead of beyond him. He sat very comfortably on the bench beyond the table, sipping from his bottle of murky water. His short, spiky hair and stubbly face reminded her of her of someone, but she couldn’t remember who. He had bright, radiant, blue eyes.
“The name’s Swen. It’s nice to meet you.” He took a couple more small sips from his bottle and looked around a bit. “Generally when people have insomnia, they don’t hang out in coffee shops.”
Branwen found herself drinking from a cup of orange juice and remembered where she was and why she was there. “I’m here to meet up with a couple of friends. They should be here any minute.” She felt weak. The aftertaste of the cheap orange juice didn’t help. She noticed something. “I’m sorry, do I know you?” she asked as politely as she could.
Swen stared out the window as he said, “I highly doubt it. I’m not from around here. I’ve been living in the city for a few days now and decided I need to make some friends.” He smiled at her.
She was feeling cynical. “Have you ever had severe insomnia?”
He shook his head. “Sleep comes easily to me.”
“After a while, reality starts becoming more and more abstract. Being without dreams, simple things become more like them. Your senses begin to warp. Your body feels like it’s a mile away. The mind and the body become distant. The defining boundaries of reality fade. Am I a butterfly dreaming I am a man? Or am I just a heartbroken girl who hasn’t slept in a week?” She paused, feeling emotional and distant at the same time. “Are you even listening to me?”
He stared out the window into the rain. He looked very solemn. She wondered what was wrong. “I know exactly how you feel.” He looked out the window for a few more moments and then stood and waked away. The tossed his empty bottle into a trash bin before walking out into the rain.
She stared for a while, not thinking about anything specific. A hand was placed on her shoulder. “You don’t look so well.” She looked up to see who the hand and voice belonged to. It was a tall, thin albino man. He moved in sudden, calculated movements.
“Demy,” she smiled at him. “You’re late.”
“I guess you can say we hit some traffic on the way.” He winked at her. “Nothing we couldn’t handle on our own.” He sat across from her and motioned at a short, bulky man at the counter. “Adrien over there has some crazy ideas for the truck and your bike. He says he’s a visionary. I say he watches too many cartoons.”
“You know I don’t watch cartoons,” said Adrien. He handed Demy a coffee and sat down with his own. He took the top off of the container and started pouring in packets of sugar. After five packets he looked at Branwen. “Wow. You don’t look so good. Still can’t sleep?” Branwen shook her head and rubber her eyes. “You shouldn’t be losing sleep over that creep. I knew he was bad news the first time I met him.”
“He hasn’t been on my mind lately. I don’t know why I can’t get to sleep.” She stared at the bottom of her empty cup. “I always suspected he was with another woman. The business trips ran later and later the more he went on them.” She stretched her neck. “I just don’t know how I’m going to make it through work in the morning.”
“I have an idea,” said Adrien. “You call work the leave a message saying you won’t be there today. Then you take a couple of these.” He handed her a bottle of pills. “Two of those and you’ll be out for eight hours.”
Demy used his outdoor voice. “Wow, Adrien, I really have to use the bathroom, how about you?”
“No, I’m fine. Oh, God! My foot! Fine, I’ll use the bathroom.”
Adrien and Demy got off the bench and made their way to the bathroom. Branwen knew exactly what they were going to talk about, but tried not to think about it. She failed, and sat there staring at the bottle of pills.
She left the bottle on the table ordered another orange juice. She took it with her into the rain. She walked to the corner and hit the button for the electronic crossing guard. She waited a few moments and watched the traffic work its way through the intersection. A tone played and the red light shaped like a hand was replaced with a white light shaped like a person walking.
A truck taking a quick right turn on red slammed on its brakes and stopped inches away from Branwen. She stood there, staring at it. It honked at her, menacingly. Betraying her instincts, she continued through the intersection and made her way back to her apartment building.
