Whether The Weather
Title: Whether The Weather
Author: keepthexfaith
Pairing: OMCxOMC
Rating: M
Disclaimer: Not real, obviously. A figment of my imagination.
Warnings:
Language
Character death
Incorporate the following statement into a piece of writing: "You wonder whether the weather is, after all, the greatest of human crises. Isn't the gush and tosh of celebrity culture every bit as threatening?"
Whether The Weather
I was sat at the tiny table of a small café just at the corner of Kings Street. I had already forgotten the name of the café, even though it was printed in an awful shade of green, on the side of that stone cold coffee cup that I had cradled carefully in my hands. Leaning forward in my chair, I turned to the window and sighed. It was a long, drawn out sigh that I had let out for the sole purpose of conveying the sheer boredom of that moment. I was ignored. I swirled the grey dregs around the bottom of the polystyrene as I hunched my shoulders up and huddled around the polystyrene cup, looking somewhat like I was trying to get as close as possible to a heat source in a very cold place.
I peered out of the filthy, grime-smeared window, just able to see a newspaper stall outside on the street. Every now and then someone would pause to ponder over the 'wonderful' titles in the magazine rack. They would pick one up, flick through it for a while, and maybe if it caught their interest they would hand over a few gold coins and off they'd go, back into the hustle and bustle of their busy lives. And because I had nothing make the monotony pass, what logical option could there be than to count how many people stopped at that stall, and what they bought? It seemed incredibly logical to me, so that was what I did. I fished a leaky biro out of my jacket pocket, grabbed a scraggy napkin from the other side of my table and started to count.
After an hour and twenty two minutes, I already had thirty seven people tallied. When I counted it out, I noticed to my dismay that twenty eight, over half two thirds of the customers had bought magazines with titles like Woman's Weekly or New Magazine. A frown slowly spread its way over my usually placid face and I rubbed the bridge of my nose tiredly.
What was it about today's society that made the average person think that 'J Lo's latest marriage', or 'the secret that Nicole Kidman and Katie Holmes are hiding from Tom Cruise' could possibly be more important than an earthquake in China, or a hurricane in Burma, or any other natural disaster for that matter? It makes you wonder whether the weather is, after all, the greatest of human crises. Isn't the gush and tosh of celebrity culture every bit as threatening? Aren't the wayward, drama studded lifestyles of the rich and famous just as emotive? Isn't the latest Hollywood marriage to break up just as heart wrenching?
At this point, I thought that an exasperated sigh, in contrary to the sigh of boredom from earlier, would let every one know how disappointed I was in the customers priorities. But yet again, I was ignored.
"Humans are doomed, as a race, to fail." I remarked rather loudly when there was no reaction to my sigh. Again, I was just ignored, but this didn't surprise me. I was in London after all, home to the 'head down, ignore everyone' personal mantra of every one of its inhabitants. In London, your business was your own business, and every one else's business was theirs. That was that, no questions asked, no prying, peeking, poking or badgering. Anyone stupid enough to meddle in others business usually ended up mugged, beaten up or was treated with such suspicion that it was hardly worth the trouble.
After a further five minutes, my phone started buzzing and a text message informed that Charlie had finally arrived back at the hotel and wanted to see me. It was his fault that I had been stuck in a dingy London café for the last two and a half hours. It was his fault we were even staying in a hotel, but I didn't want to start thinking about that. That was also the reason I'd been in a dodgy café, trying to mull things over and calm down. I stood up and shoved the phone in my pocket. I dumped the coffee in the bin and opened the door to brace the bitter cold of an English winter once more. Today was particularly bad as well, which I thought was quite ironic. I pulled up my hood and started to run down the street, not wanting to stay in the cold winds and rain longer than necessary. All I had on my mind was Charlie now.
The rain made it incredibly hard to see. So hard, in fact, that I didn't notice the person at the pedestrian crossing until I bumped into them.
"Watch where you're going!"
I frowned slightly at their angry tone and just turned to cross the road, not wanting to get into a fight. Maybe if I had stopped to reply, the next part wouldn't have happened. I walked into the street and smiled faintly, the hotel just in my line of sight now. Soon I would be walking through the double doors, into a warm room and Charlie's arms.
I started to cross the intersection, still staring at the double doors and even laughing softly in anticipation. I didn't even see the car heading towards me, and I saw Charlie standing in the doorway, waving at me happily. Things were finally going to be okay. Three seconds later, I was knocked off my feet by a dark green Vauxhall Astra.
Needless to say, Charlie wasn't waving anymore when I hit the pavement.