10:14 · café on a side street, window seat
they have been here long enough that the coffee has gone cold without being drunk. one of them — the shorter one, by the door — is telling a long story with both hands. the other is not so much listening as waiting for a particular sentence to arrive.
when it arrives, they laugh. not a new laugh; a laugh they have arrived at before, by many routes.
field-note the waiter has stopped offering refills. through the window i can only see their shoulders and the cups. the cups have not moved in forty minutes.