It was a lazy Sunday morning and she was asleep still, her
face quiet in a pose against the pillow, head slightly angled facing the
ceiling, her gentle features softened in the dappled light coming in from the
dawn.
Her hair framed, slightly askew, for she had showered the
night before and merely let it air dry.
He smiled at the capriciousness of the strands. She looked very much at peace, lips not even
barely parted and her chest rose in quiet swells like the glass on a
early-morning ocean.
He hated to disrupt her, but figured the small act of
getting out of bed would likely do so…so instead of waking her with his
movement he leaned over and kissed the corner of her mouth. She inhaled, and stirred, rolling away from
him and in a barely-audible murmur he heard her say one word—Coffee.
Her voice was thick with sleep, a husk that he had heard
many times but it also sounded like the times when her mouth was pressed
against his ear…but in those moments she wasn’t mentioning coffee…rather
something usually all together different.
But for now, the voice demanded the traditional breakfast
drink so he headed downstairs.
And for now, he paused…halfway down the stairs he stopped
and lingered on the stairway. After a
few minutes he stole back up where the door was already opened and he could see
her facing towards him. She had fallen
back asleep.
He watched her for a moment, knowing her annoyance if she
woke up and caught him staring but for now she didn’t. It’s rare to be able to stare at somebody
without creeping them out…the benefit of sleep is getting away with the
stare. It might still be a little weird
but to him it was like admiring a painting…her perfect eyebrows, the tiny nostrils,
her lips pliant and slightly upward like a slight smile. Her skin was flawless.
He left the doorway and headed back down.
One of the more interesting morning noises is the sound of
coffee percolating…he wished they still had those old silver coffee makers,
with the liquid bubbling up in the clear top…a visual bit of evidence that
something magical was happening between boiling water and ground up coffee
beans. The louder the noise the closer
to being finished. He had heard it
growing up and he remembered wondering what the fuss was all about. Now he knew.
In the ancient days supplicants would ply the royals with
all sorts of offerings…ambrosia, lavenders, small trinkets of gold and perhaps
some wild small bird from a far-off exotic island. He traipsed through the yard until he had
collected a small thatch of daisies, wild ones, yellow and fresh and he clipped
them into a small gathering.
He placed the clutch next to the coffee on a small wooden
tray…steam rose from the cup and he inhaled it slightly. Outside the sun was coming up at a decent
angle, streaming through the windows and throwing their keystone squares on the
floor. The house was quiet, still, a few
birds outside the only disturbance. He
loved this part of the day.
He carefully ascended the stairs and was able to silently
enter the room since the door was left open.
She hadn’t moved at all.
A tiny icicle thin remembrance broke in his mind, of a time
when they had first met, and she had kept such reserve, kept such quietness…in
his memory she was like she was now, quietly beautiful, unspeaking, perhaps
dreaming of something that he would never quite know.
But she was here, and however far away she might have been
in her mind, she was now in front of him, barely dressed, almost naked beneath
the sheets.
He wanted to speak to her, wanted to let the words that
percolated in his mind be revealed, come out steaming and wake her with their
energy. He wanted her to know that the
day that started with her in it was his favorite part of the day. That her proximity was humbling, that she
would stay a second, a minute, let alone an hour was more than he could absorb
at times.
He wanted to wake her, but in the end she woke herself…that
sweet change in breathing rhythms, the slight stretch as she blinked and looked
around. She saw him standing there in
the doorway and she had a smile that looked like fortune.
You brought me coffee, she said, in that voice now slightly
fuller but still reminiscent of sleep.
He wanted to tell her that he had brought so much more…a
mind full of cravings, an imagination full of metaphors for incandescence, a
body flushed with energy at just the slightest view of her…but in the end he
just said
Yeah, I brought you some coffee.
