Serpents and Coffee

Joan was in the more built up areas of the park, still on the outskirts of the city. There was enough greenery to enjoy the lush forests of the island, while still feeling the comfort and familiarity of city life. She had a coffee in one hand, and was browsing on her phone with the other.

I wonder what I could eat for lunch. I haven't eaten a big meal in three days. Let's see... Restaurants near me... Or maybe cafés near me.

Joan's physiology functioned like that of a snake. While she did not have the flexible jaws to swallow her prey whole like snakes did, she only needed to eat a big meal to feel satisfied for a while. However, she was still French at heart, and lunch was a sacred hour: the biggest meal of the day; not a small dejeuner, but the regular sized dejeuner. Go hard or go home, as the English would say.

A small tongue poked out of the corner of her mouth as she tried to decide on what looked nice based on the ratings, photos, reviews and descriptions.

She was so engrossed, she didn't realise she had bumped into someone else, spilling her coffee all over the front of her crisp white shirt. The cup fell to the ground with a satisfyingly empty sound, rolling away on the concrete path.

"Gahhh!" she made an odd sound. She adjusted her skewed glasses, perching them back on her nose. She apologized profusely, giving small, dipping bows to the person she just bumped into. "I'm so sorry! It's my fault, I was unobservant to my surroundings and decided that this was not a built-up area and I was free to use my phone!"

"Joan," she introduced, taking the napkin out with a small 'thank you'. She lightly daubed the stained shirt with the napkin, though it did not prove to be much help in removing the colour. She would have to get it washed when she got home. Most of the liquid had been soaked up, but the shirt was still damp.

If Joan or James were more ill-tempered, there would have been more of an argument about it, she'd bet. She was lucky that James was so well-mannered about it.

Since Joan was a makeup artist, she could see minor signs of stress on James' face that he may not have been aware about, and she became particularly good at reading people's moods. James was so tall, she could not tell if he was an adult, but he still retained the face of a youth. She wasn't sure if she should address him 'sir' or something else, so she resorted to just using the name he introduced himself with.

"Are you alright, James? Is there something perhaps on your mind?" she began. "It's rare that two absent-minded people would just bump into each other here. I was thinking about going to lunch at one of the cafés by the park. If you would like to join me or pay for my coffee, that's fine."

She merely offered. Joan was a bit too cowardly to suggest a boy pay for her spilled coffee, considering it was mostly her fault. It would have been a small but thoughtful gesture. When people forgot about social niceties like that, they were often troubled by something greater, she thought.

Joan went into the café by the park. When asked how many people were going to sit at a table, she checked if James had followed her.

She held up the sign for two. She sat down and looked at the menu.

"I love a big lunch," said Joan. "It is a French food tradition to eat well for the midday meal. Everyone else eats so fast here, but I like to take my time, especially on the weekend."

"No, I'm not intelligent," she denied politely. "I just have a lot of experience in looking at faces from my line of work, that's all. I am actually very clumsy and unobservant."

Joan pointed to her stained white blouse with a self-deprecating but good-natured smile, and hid the stains again using her large scarf. She ordered her meal, a Croque Madame with a bowl of salad, and for drinks, a café latté.

She liked to think her accent was not that strong, but she did admit in her public life, she did not care to affect a more American or British accent, and her accent was audibly French in some places. Her food choices too, reflected her homeland.

"I can tell from your face, for example, that maybe there is something troubling you," she said. "I am not usually one to invite strangers for lunch. I just could not leave you alone for some reason. I have a young cousin, maybe your age back in France. It is natural for me to worry, like a big sister, yes?"

Joan was quite motherly, perhaps not having had children herself, yet she desired to start a family. When she saw troubled-looking teens, she knew something was up instinctively. She never had such a stormy adolescence, but she did her share of brooding.

"When you look at faces every day, you can start to pick out the smallest of things as a makeup artist." Joan rebutted firmly, but kindly. "Trust me when I say I'm not smart. There is no intelligence or logic to reading other peoples' emotions. Only empathy and experience,"

She thought that sounded correct on the surface. All she knew was that she only trusted her judgement, and not any outside information that could influence her decisions. She waited patiently for James to make his order. She remained silent but attentive in the downtime.


"Thank you," she then offered her thanks to James about being kind. She scratched her cheek with a finger, as though bashfully in thought. "Being kind is all that I have going for me."

As her coffee came, she offered another thank you to the server, and sipped the beverage while it was still hot. He did not need to talk about anything that was weighing down on him specifically. He could just indulge in conversations other than such heavy topics.

"See, James," Joan breathed in first, her voice remaining a low, mellow tone as though she would be imparting some advice to him. "People won't know unless you tell them. We are made to be social, even if you dislike or won't accept that fact. There's only so much non-verbal communication will do for you, especially if you are crying out for help. Maybe that's why you feel that they just walk by."

"Take the story of the Good Samaritan. Even when the robbed man was visibly in distress, he was refused help twice before the Samaritan assisted him. This can happen, but look at it from another perspective: the people around you may be aware of your pain, but they may not have the means to help you themselves. They may have their own suffering. What you can do is to use your voice. Verbalise it. The Samaritan will come eventually."

Joan would not talk about her own hypocrisy on the matter. She despised Christianity and what it was, and what it became, but those were the teachings she learned in school, and the only example she could give right now.

She understood where the young man was coming from, but she refused to verbalise her own problems. If they walked on by, so let them. She accepted that was the way the world worked, so she dealt with her issues by forming a completely different personality for them.

"If you want to talk about it indirectly, or talk about something else, I don't mind," Joan took a long gulp of her coffee.