The Temptations

The girl with purple hair winks at me as another Ben. E. King song trickles out of the speakers. She’s been playing him for the past hour, my favorite artist. I don’t know how, but a part of me feels like she knows this. It only makes me love her more.  

Wind blows in through the doorway, and the candles set at each of the tables flicker in response to the cool breeze that whispers at it, the yellow flame clinging desperately to the wick. I pass my finger slowly through the flame. It’s cold. I hold my finger over it, and then eventually push it inside. Nothing. 

Every table in here is covered in a mosaic, a strange and expensive choice of decor for this humble little café off of F street. My table features two women leaning against each other, their faces cracked in colorful disarray. Crumbs have collected in the spaces between the broken glass, in between the eyes of the shattered faces that I’m resting my arms on. With trembling fingers I try to wipe the grime from the spaces in between, but more crumbs seem to appear in their place. 

The girls behind the counter chatter amongst themselves, gently guiding the new hire around the espresso machine, steam shushing them as it comes out. The girl with purple hair is laughing at something the new hire said, resting a hand gently, easily, on the girls arm. She looks so beautiful when she laughs. Something pangs in my chest, and I know the feeling is loss. I miss this woman, despite never knowing her before today..

“Decaf vanilla latte, extra foam,” she calls out, placing a mug on the counter. I can’t place it, but something about her voice feels off, like it shouldn’t be coming from her body. It doesn’t fit her, somehow. 

Petals fall from the flowers on the table in front of me, and one of them lands over the cracked, mosaic eyes of the girl beneath my left elbow. I try to count the ones remaining on the flower, the outer white of the petals bleeding into a deep purple, and then into nothing, an impossible black oblivion in the center. They are cool and smooth, and they slip out of the stalk easily. I pull all of them out, slowly, one by one, trying to see what’s at the center. It can’t be nothing. 

My Girl by The Temptations slides over King’s voice, taking his place in the audio system. Panic sparks in my stomach, and I look up toward the workers, searching for that shock of purple, but am surprised to see only brown and blonde hair catching the light, sashaying around the machines. What happened to King? 

I look around, and there she is, sitting at the table across from me, absorbed in her book. She sits under a collection of polaroids strung up over the scratched up, faux-weathered wooden paneling that is meant to make this place feel cozier, more homely. Instead, the artificial scratches make the walls look like static, a world that is glitching, coming apart. 

The girl clears her throat and turns a page right as the sun disappears behind another cloud. The only source of light now comes from several dim, pale yellow bulbs scattered across the ceiling–it makes the room look the color of cake batter. I can barely see my hands. How can she read like this? 

I've got sunshine on a cloudy day

When it's cold outside

One of the other workers, the new hire, comes from around the counter and sits down next to the purple-hair girl. I don’t like the way she smiles at her. New Hire flips her hair over her shoulder and says something to make Purple Hair laugh. Rage slowly, silently, climbs up my belly, coiling around my chest, my neck, and my shoulders, before settling at the base of my skull, like a vine growing up an old brick building. 

I guess 

you'd 

Say

What can make me… this way

My girl, my…, my… 

Talkin' 'bout… 

The wind dies down and the music cuts out. I look up and the cafe is gone. There is a single yellow light floating in front of me. I cannot tell if it is 20 feet away, or only inches from my face. There is no heat, no cold. No feeling at all. Nothing but the light, and the faint smell of flowers. 

My girl 

A gust of wind blows the door into the wall. I am back in the cafe, but the light outside is so bright, it’s impossible to see anything. 

I've got so much honey

The bees envy me

One of the clouds fell to the earth and enveloped this tiny bakery. I can’t see anything on F street, no more people walking by. I can’t see anything past the window. The people in the shop are frozen. Coffee hangs in mid-air, a dark, dirty icicle that clings to the baristas pitcher. Something is wrong with their faces. They’re still, but twitching, their features moving slowly around the center of their face like water circling a drain. 

What’s going on? The voice is outside of myself. For a moment, I think it’s a strange part of the song, coming from the audio system, but then it cuts in again:

Has this ever happened when you ran these before? 

It crackles from the sky, distant and empty.

The air pinches, and then I am standing over a body. Red pools around her hair, the purple strands blooming away from her skull in a spiral. Her face is still intact, unlike the others, and recognition shoots through me. I see her at the park on a sunny day. We’re walking around the pond, watching the ducks. And she is holding my hand. It’s warm, this memory. But then we are in a room, what looks like an apartment building, and I am suddenly so cold. She’s sitting in the corner, facing away from me, her purple hair a mirage that shimmers, beckons, against the yellow lights. I move closer to her, reach for her, and am overwhelmed by a floral scent before the scene dissolves and I find myself in an alley. She is walking away from me, her hair cascading like a river, dirty and slick with oil spilling over her shoulders. She turns to me, opens her mouth to say something, but all I can hear is static/all I hear is a high-pitched moan. I cover my ears and fall to the ground, expecting rough cobble-stone to scrape my knees, but instead I find myself kneeling on the glossy tiles of the café floor. 

Is this a confession?

This voice is the same as the one that came from the girl with purple hair. But her mouth isn’t moving this time. Her entire body is very still, stiff. Her eyes are open, taking in nothing, reflecting back tiny pieces of light like two discarded marbles. 

There is blood on my hands. 

My girl. 

There is blood on my hands. 

My girl. 

It goes dark again for a moment, before the lights come back on. I am back in the cafe, but it is empty. My hands are clean. There is no light coming through the windows, only blackness beyond. 

The music is swelling now. I see a flutter of purple in the corner of my vision. And then the world goes dark.