He takes his seat across the table. Two glasses tower over their coasters as if to assert their dominance, forcing the thin pieces of cardboard to collect their sweat. A fan is toiling in the distance, each blade perpetually fighting a never ending supply of air. The sun demands it way through the slit of the shudders. A waitress comes by to check on them, but a simple head nod lets her know that they need time. Time that they haven’t had in what seems to be ages. 

Picking up his glass, he takes a long gulp, letting the cool stream of water cascade over his tongue and down into the depths of his stomach. He himself is in need of time. Where to start? What to say? Why has it been so long? 

None of these questions seem to satisfy what needs to be expressed. The second hand on the clock hanging over the mantel screams at him over the hum of the lively pub as it glides into the next minute. So instead he fishes out a cube of ice and stores it under his lips, allowing it to numb whatever it is that might come out of his mouth. 

It is in that precise moment that it hits him… How can he expect to feel joy, when the lips that speak of joy are debilitated by the numbness of the ice? “Sure,” he thinks, “I can numb the pain, but not without also numbing everything else.” But the knowledge of the ice still doesn’t change anything. It can’t stop the war from being waged. It couldn’t save the coasters from their sweat laden deathbeds. It couldn’t forge peace between the blades of the fan and the molecules of the air. It couldn’t even, on its best day, dream of fighting off the radiance of the sun. 

Ultimately, it is this knowledge that drives him the most to despair. He knows what should be said — what should be done for that matter — but can’t find the way to do it. He is left with this surplus of knowledge, but no understanding of what to do about it. It is this knowledge that continually reminds him just how far he has fallen… slowly, but surely, fallen.

Intimidated by the ideas soaring through his head, he chews the cube in his mouth, stands up, and excuses himself from the table, only to return again tomorrow. Hopefully this time he will find the words…