A tiny blip in the continuum

I had not paid them much attention since they first walked in.

From across me, two tables away, sat a couple. They both looked no more than 23. They sat facing each other in silence. Not once in the entire time they settled down did a conversation existed between them. While their actions – or lack thereof, rather – did not suggest so, the body language of the girl said they were a dating couple.

She sat still most of the time, primly, her legs closed together. A black sling bag laid on her lap. He sat lounged in his chair, smoking a cigarette. For a long time, his gaze remained on a space on the wall behind and above her.

She took off her watch, and massaged her wrist. Then she held up the same hand and sank her face in it.

She began to cry. Discreetly. He watched, but remained – unmoved and unmoving – as she reached into her bag and produced a packet of facial tissues.

After she was done drying her tears, he sat up. Taking his cue, she did likewise. She toyed with her watch, choosing to fix her gaze on that shiny piece of inanimate object and not at the living, breathing being sitting from across her. It was just as well, for neither seemed to display any semblance of a soul – not in the mechanism of the timepiece nor in his eyes.

Right then, as if he wanted to prove me wrong, he reached out a hand to her. Her fidgeting stopped. He spoke briefly. Still, she did not look at him. Whatever it was he said, her response was clear; she kept her hand and shook her head. He fell back into his chair.

Another long beat. Their attention soon turned to their respective cell phones – each quietly thumbing out SMSes. The plasticky creaking of the keypads was, by far, the only audible sound to have emanated from their presence. In the wake of what had transpired briefly and softly by speech, it sounded obscenely amplified.

I could not bear to watch further. The underlying tension of the silences between them and of their inaction was, to me, as damaging as it would be if they have had a verbal or physical fight. To my mind, their relationship appeared to have just ended, and I had been made a witness to the failing of their union against my will. My very own crossroads mirrored.

It was a burden I did not need, not at this point in my life. I stashed my laptop and walked away.