Sunday, August 22, 2010

234. In real life


His life was inside-out and his world upside-down. Christophe was by himself, isolated and alone, in the middle of a bustling, foreign city, in the middle of the day, in the middle of August. And yet it was winter. Sans snow. Sans church bells. Sans roasting chestnuts.

He sipped his coffee – at least that was up to standard, which was more than could be said of the floppy, tasteless croissant, or indeed the surly service. Having plugged in his dongle and searched for a wireless hot-spot, he downloaded his emails from ‘home’ and set about the heavy-hearted responses. The longer he sat there the more he knew that his heart was no longer in this. Absentmindedly, he allowed his gaze to roam around the plaza.

He had not been aware of her steady gaze, until their eyes locked. Normally, eyes unlock instantly. Not this time. He pushed his stool back.

4 comments:

Joan Elizabeth said...

mmm what comes next I wonder?

And I am going to be a pedant on the technology because I can ... if he has a dongle he doesn't need a hot spot he has a mobile wireless connection.

Julie said...

I tried to look this up to get some approximation of correctness! I figured that if I could assume his dongle was European, AND that he was outside, then he would either have to have paid for the service or simply search for an unprotected service.

I bow to your greater knowledge ...

jabblog said...

Romantic - he will live to rejoice!

Julie said...

I like to toss one of these in every so often ... lightens the old age gloom!