A Table for Two
A dark, metaphorical tale about addiction and temptation, and a tense encounter between a woman and the stranger who embodies everything she can’t stop feeding.
In a white dress, with smooth skin and glistening eyes, she raises her hand and offers it to the tall being wearing a hoodie. He looks very strange; the hoodie covers his head and most of his face. Still, she keeps her hand raised, tempting him to take it.
Uncertain, he takes a few steps back and stares at her, as if his eyes were saying, “How can it be?!”
He still avoids coming close, as if afraid, undecided.
She smiles, reaches onto the table in front of her, draws a cigarette from the half-empty pack, puts it between her lips, and lights it. With a deep breath, she inhales the first puff.
“Sit with me,” she says, pointing at the empty chair at her table.
“You… you want me to stay?” he asks, hardly believing his ears, watching as she exhales the smoke with elegance.
“Not really. Nobody wants you around. But you came uninvited,” she says, coughing and dropping the cigarette into the ashtray.
When the coughing subsides, she adds, “You’re here now, so you might as well stay a while.”
“I rarely come uninvited,” he replies, taking a seat just as she lights another cigarette.
Her expression shifts from passive to surprised as he sits at her table. She tempted him, called him to her, but never truly meant, or believed, that he would come and stay.
The figure in the hoodie rests his elbows on the table and cradles his face in his hands, locking eyes with her, smiling as she draws on her cigarette.
They look at each other in silence. The ashtray fills, and now she begins to toss the smoked cigarettes onto the ground, under the table, all around her. Fear creeps in as she looks at the one across from her. Yet she doesn’t stop smoking. She can’t.
“I like a woman who smokes,” he finally says, his voice breaking the silence. His gaze lingers on her. “I like to taste it on her tongue. Smell it in her breath. See it on her skin.”
With another cigarette between her lips, she freezes at hearing these words and spits it out. Now she understands who sits before her, claiming her table, warming her chair. She tries to speak, but the fear of that moment chokes her. She rises and stumbles forward, but her breath grows heavy, her chest burning. After only a few steps, she is exhausted.
He comes from behind and gently grabs her hand. At his touch, she turns and looks into his face with horror.
“I know you. I recognize you,” she says, breathing hard, her whole-body trembling with weakness.
“Yes,” he answers. “It’s me. Say my name.”
“Cancer,” she whispers, with her last breath.
A.O. Homorodean
Addiction is seductive. I hope you didn’t light a cigarette while reading.
Take care of your health. It’s the only story you can’t rewrite.
You cand read more flash and short fiction here:
Once Upon a Time: A Twisted Fairy Tale - Part 1
Once Upon a Time: And They Lived Happily Ever After – Part 2