IT WAS true what they say about scent: everything else seemed drowned out by the rotten yet sweet so sweet stench of musty, moist flowers. Petals fallen to the tablecloth waysides, wrinkled by heat—even their tips of white hope diminished.
Four.
A less than attractive dog panted. Heavily.
You are only in control of yourself.
But our actions influence other people's actions.
Perhaps your actions should be written—that patient form of communication?
You are only in control of yourself.
The cycle was indeed cyclical—how would she ever decide with all of these external voices of so-called reason, of objectivity, contradicting each other? How unfair for life to root inside of her—to firmly make that decision, to latch onto—with him gone like a ghost!
But unlike a ghost he still had his own volition. He could call. Could write.
A fairly obese couple with matching "Born in the U.S.A." oversized T-shirts walked into the café, birthing a private moment of communication within one another through sign language. She wished she could decipher the lexicon of gestures: one moment, the wife seemed shocked; the next, she was beside herself in muted laugher, triggering his own.
Our actions influence other people's actions.
All she could bring herself to do was be here, in this café, wondering how long it would be before people would notice the swell of her midsection, in the worst part of the city: tourists brimming over like some cheap-thrill amusement ride, paying their tickets for some mediated version of Paris, complete with overpriced, stale croissants, fruit tarts, pain. Whose idea had it been to come anyway?
Anyway,
she couldn't bring herself to work at the ER desk today. She had called in sick—deserting all those patients in need of immediate processing. She could hear that repetitive bickering now, as it was every day:
Get me a doctor!
To process better communication, you must first fill out the patient's form.
I need a fucking doctor!
Patient form of communication.
While she disliked people, she felt deeply for individuals. If she hadn't, she would have abandoned her father's medical dream of her long ago.
So when the American—tumbling, practically, off of his plastic-wicker chair—began hacking from his éclair, it took only a moment for her to grab him from behind, count, squeeze where her tiny arms could sense his sternum might be, count, squeeze again. Of course it was so: on her day off she would be making the most application of her knowledge. Other days it was secretarial fodder—her life behind a window in front of other people.
It took a few thrusts until that chunk of wet paste came galloping out of his mouth. Other people's actions influence our actions influence other people's actions. And now his face slowly cleared its flow of redness, returning to a pasty hue of normalcy, she supposed.
