The Restaurant

She was not one of those butterfly girls. All pretty and fluttering without substance.

The kind men chase, net and pin into a frame. A trophy until it starts to fade and collect dust.

She was a restaurant.

The one you find on a grey and rainy afternoon. The cold and damp had you walking with your head down. You turned down some side street you’ve never walked down. A delicate filigree sign cut from steel, the lettering so elaborate you cannot quite make out the name. A red door opens, a few notes beckon, asking you to come in. Your thoughts turn to Sirens. Its something you forgot about but the notes carve a familiar an ache in your chest, so you go in, just for a quick coffee and to warm up a bit, maybe ask for directions.

Inside is lit with Christmas lights and candles. Its warm here and glowing. It looks like the interior of a gypsy caravan, a magpie’s nest. Shiny pretty things with no discernible cohesion except the lack of it. The longer you look the more beautiful it becomes. Chairs once decadent, in the misused sense of the word, have become truly so. They hug and hold all of your aching bones and you can never recall being quite so comfortable.

The waitress is a lovely and quiet slip of a thing. She seems to know the moment before you turn your head to find her. She disappears and reappears floating around the floor anticipating your needs. Moving like a dancer around an ancient monolith of an espresso machine, which is hissing profane promises of the sleep you won’t be getting.

The menu at first seems to make no sense, juxtapositions of comfort food and exotic delicacies you cannot pronounce. Every tantalizing morsel that comes from the kitchen sates you in ways you didn’t know you needed. You find yourself savoring every bite, emitting tiny pleasure noise in spite of yourself. But it’s safe here so you give in and enjoy.

Sit back after with a generously poured glass of whiskey, and you wonder how somewhere you have never been before can feel so much like home. Something tells you that you can smoke in here, you can do anything you want in here, just don’t leave a mess.

No, she is not one of those butterfly girls you can pin down and forget about, she was nothing like that at all.