The lady in gray 2/2

A woman, black and white, with dark hair stared back at the woman in gray, sitting alone in the café. “But I know that you are not here, not really, not anymore”, she said to herself silently. It was an old photograph after all. A steady wind now blew through the streets that she had to walk home on. Only the warm embrace of the alcohol within her was there to keep her warm. But that warmth she obtained for only a couple francs out of her wallet, was losing its strength now and what was left, was only a tiredness. A familiar tiredness merely challenged when her mind wondered off to the picture in her pocket and to where else her mind would lead her from there.

She tried not to go there, but she often did. She tried to forget it all, but often remembered. And remembering had a price that she paid with a hot restlessness within her chest, fighting the tiredness off for a moment or two. “A night like all the others”. The woman in the dress looked once more at the white wine that was still in her glass, before she finished it and left it empty, along with a couple francs, on the old, gray table. After that, she walked off, alone, again not seen by the garçon, into the many shades of Paris to which her dress fitted so perfectly. A city she traveled to for a chance to forget. And now this city had become an invitation to remain where she had been even before her train had left for the Gare du Nord all those weeks and months ago. An invitation to remembered while wearing a dress for no one to see it.

And later when the night had nearly lost its reign over the city, the garçon thought about his guest like he did with many souls who had entered his café like her. He wondered who that woman in the blue dress had been, so beautiful, only with red wine to keep her company, somewhere in montrouge, all alone like so many. For a moment he regretted not asking her who she was, what she was doing alone on a night like this. But then he saw the dim morning light warming up the pavement in front of his café and got reminded to do his silent work in an ending night like all the others