Water Signs

Chapter 1

He sat there in silence for what seemed like hours. But, in reality, it had only been around twenty minutes or so. Daniel, Dan for short or DanDan to Filipino relatives... an artist/entrepreneur who is known for his gory, bloody and dark paintings, a newly single 27 year old man, sitting alone outside one of those uppity, high-priced coffee shops that people only went to so they could update their social media statuses. What the fuck am I doing here... he asked himself, as he lit up another cigarette. He let the smoke trickle out of his mouth slowly as he reminded himself that he really needed to stop smoking. As he inhaled and exhaled the poisonous smoke, he looked around at the tables around him. Random faces, random people. A young teenaged couple sat at one table, intertwined in each other and stealing kisses when they thought nobody was watching. A man in a business suit sat in another table, engrossed in his laptop. A group of trendy twenty-somethings laughed obnoxiously at another table. Random faces, random people.

He sat and observed them all, trying not to look like a stalker. He imagined the business suit guy was probably watching porn, trying to make it seem he was doing some type of important work on his laptop.. Ha! He looked like the type! Some sexually frustrated yuppie who couldn't get it up in the bedroom but got off on watching porn in a public place.

As he turned to look back at the teenaged lovers, preparing to imagine up some twisted sordid story about the two, he noticed they had already left. And as he looked up, saw a young woman making her way to their table, large coffee in hand. She sat down with a look of disdain on her face, or what he could see of her face, which was partially covered in large black-out sunglasses. Her long hair was a deep shade of pitch black and her complexion was pale, on the verge of being anaemic, if not for that hint of pink at her cheeks. She was dressed in all black. A black shirt with some white old English print design on it, black tight jeans and black canvas sneakers. All black, except for a cherry red belt. Her handbag was a leather sling with rivets and silver beads scattered on the outside.

She sat there and looked down at her coffee, opened the lid and blew inside the cup to help it cool. Dan immediately noticed her lips. Not a hint of lipstick or gloss, but they were pink, and gave an ethereal contrast to the rest of her black and white aura. She looked over at him and noticed him staring, he suddenly looked the other way and pretended to be deep in thought. All of a sudden he heard a soft voice behind him, "Hi..Do you have a light?" she asked, showing her cigarette..

"Um.. yeah... hang on..." As he fumbled through his pants pocket looking for his lighter.

"Here you go.." He handed the lighter to her, wondering if he should've just lit it up for her instead.

She used one hand to cover the cigarette and the other to light it up with. As she inhaled deeply, he looked up at her and felt instantly enthralled by her.

"Thank you." She said as she lay the lighter on the table and walked back to her seat.

He sat there for another 10 minutes or so, trying to muster up the courage to say something to the mysterious yet magnetic lady in black, sitting only a few feet away from him.

He had only been separated from his girlfriend for six months, after having been together for ten long years, since high school. Six months of pure hell. He caught her fucking his best friend. Cliché but, true. And he spent the majority of those six months drunk and stoned and waking up daily in a puddle of vomit, sweat, tears and, occasionally , blood. He stopped painting, he'd drink all day and sleep all night. But he woke up this morning and said, no more drinking! It's time to move the fuck on, he said to himself as he poured out all the liquor in the house. Then he took a shower and walked over to this overpriced coffeehouse a few blocks away.

And now he sat there, trying to look at the woman without seeming obvious. As he side glanced, he was surprised to see that she was looking straight at him. He did a double take and, without even thinking, awkwardly said, "Hi.."