Pockets Full Of Coffee Beans (And Other Reasons To Read Something Else)

Under the cliffhanging cover of a ledge of roof, the girl in the slate-grey sweater glanced down at her feet. Held one foot up in the orangeish glow of the shop-lights. Her shoes were terribly interesting and impractical; she was up to her ankles in cold water. Water sluiced down the drainpipes and spilled over the edges of the eavestroughs, spattering against the ground uncolored paint. The streets were streaked with reflected light, the cars flashed by like fish.

She was late; motions of her wrist and eyes and lips speculated about getting wet and precluded the possibility of the rain ending. Sound and blackness splashed out onto the street, and she looked back and forth, pushing back damp strands of her hair.

She was twenty-four. Born May 16, 1983. She was a walker; she looked over her shoulder at you and was gone. She had learned without watching about langour and slanted looks, the motions of eyes and wrists and lips. She was a taker, but whenever her thoughts remembered themselves, she tried to give. No one knew her middle name.

She looked after an umbrella-ed man, agonized, made a wish, and blew out her candles. Her shoes shone with water as she ran lightly across the street and disappeared into the people of the city. She was a walker; she looked over her shoulder at you and was gone before you could ask about her name.