The Five-Second Rule
The pub, if that’s what you would call it, since the recent owner redecorated the old working man’s place into a Moroccan style café, was empty except for two. It was gloomy, yet charming, with hand-made cushions littering the sticky old floors, warm halogen bulbs fitted into lamps shaded by patchwork leather and a great many oil paintings of Moroccan street scenes. Still, the stale air from a decade of working-class men drinking stout beer and smoking king-size cigarettes wasn’t going anywhere.
It was Roy and Meredith’s regular meeting place, they shared a love of things unusual, this establishment being a perfect example. They sat in silence for a while, relishing the aroma of their hot mint tea and the complimentary bowl of pitted green olives as they awaited their vegetarian pizza, thus was their ritual. Roy was perplexed, Meredith could see. She studied him, how he held his glass cup by the sides rather than by its handle, the tea was hot, but he was so vacant that he didn’t seem to notice that his fingers must be burning.
Meredith realised she was slouching quite badly, she could never maintain a good posture for very long, especially when sat on just a cushion. She shifted, which seemed to break Roy out of his trance. He glanced at her, then at his cup, now aware of the pain in his fingers he quickly dropped the cup on the table, spilling it and tipping the small bowl of olives.
“Shit!” he spat as he hastily picked up the cup, reaching for the cheap single-ply tissues from the khaki coloured papier-mâché box on the table.
A tear rolled down his cheek. Meredith could only watch, observing him as best she could, in the hope she might be better prepared for the inevitable emotional support she would soon be offering him. As he dabbed the last of the spillage and binned the soggy clump of tissue, he poured another cup but this time left it on the table to cool. She could see he was now avoiding her gaze, he peered toward the empty bar pretending as if something had caught his attention as he reached for an olive but missed the bowl, poking the tissue box instead. He looked to the olives, took one and seemed to forget his aversion as he caught Meredith’s stare.
“Come on, tell me” she uttered, expectantly and with a hint of reluctance.
“Lindsey” was all he said, in a murmur, which was all he needed to say as Meredith could have predicted it.
Meredith sighed, dropping her shoulders she took a sip of her tea, the mint leaves tickled her tongue, signalling the end of this cup and time to our a fresh one. She was grateful, it gave her time to compose herself.
“It’s a mess”, he almost vomited the words, the floodgate was open and Meredith braced herself for the ensuing purge of withheld turmoil which had been brewing within him.
“So, it didn’t go well at the rave last night? What happened?” she hoped that if she could shift the topic soon enough, she could avoid the deluge.
“The rave was great! Amazing in fact! It took us like three hours to find the place, you know how cryptic the guys can be when they organise it, as if Dan Brown threw illegal techno parties under canal bridges.” They both smirked at this, both being Dan Brown and techno fans. “There must’ve been about eighty people there, everyone was wrecked by the time we got there, it went on until I dunno when, but the sun was up and all the nine-to-fivers were looking down on us wreckheads skanking like trash, loved it!”
“And Lindsey was there yeah?”
“Yeah, we were together the whole time, it was perfect”, he was smiling, but that soon settled into something grim as his thoughts traversed elsewhere.
“So? What happened?” Meredith was getting impatient, she took an olive and rolled it between her fingers, staring at him, interrogatively.
“We got back to hers at about three in the afternoon, slept for a few hours, I couldn’t sleep properly, I was in that weird, post-party lucid space. She slept like a log, between my sleeps I would just stare at her, she’s so beautiful that my heart just can’t take it!” he was getting tense.
“I don’t see what the problem is here, you’re upset because she’s beautiful?”
“Too beautiful!”
“For what? You?”
“Well, no. At least I don’t think so. And it’s not just the way she looks, it’s the way she is. I just can’t believe she exists!”
“Yeah she’s cool, anyone who enjoys techno and some dub roots reggae is a friend to me” she joked, in an attempt to lighten the mood, but Roy was rock solid.
“The way she carries herself, so confidently. Befriends everyone she meets, everyone likes her! Even you and you don’t like anyone except me and your dog.”
“His name’s Stilton,” she retorted, half jesting.
“I feel inadequate. She doesn’t need me, she’s fine on her own, better in fact. She asked me to leave this afternoon because she wanted to be alone, but I wanted to be with her. I admire and hate her for it, my head spins when I try to figure it out.”
“What’s there to figure out? Just give her space, easy. God knows you could use some time to yourself, focus on just you, it’s not healthy to obsess on a person.”
“I’m not obsessing.”
“Then what are you doing right now?”
“Waiting for my tea to cool down.”
“Now you’re just being a coward.”
“Well I’m sorry I’m not an emotional vacuum like you.”
“That was uncalled for.”
Roy lowered his head shamefully, pulling at the draw-strings of the poncho he was wearing. The owner of the bar had a thing for ponchos and kept a collection available for people to wear whilst inside the bar.
“Fucking ponchos in a Moroccan bar,” he uttered between his teeth “what am I doing?”
Meredith was unsure about the question. Dropping her defencive stance from his unmerited attack, she reclined into a half-lying position on the cushion, propped by her elbow.
“You need to stop comparing yourself to her. You are two different people.”
She was still rolling the olive in her free hand.
“But what does she want from me? She’s creative, funny, sociable, humble and independent. I have nothing to offer her.”
“Do you love her?”
“Isn’t it obvious?”
“If it were, you’d see clearly what it is you have to offer her. But you’re not embracing and loving yourself, you’re too focused on her and her qualities.”
“Because they outshine my own qualities.”
“What?” She dropped the olive and sat up, leaning toward him and staring intensely for an uncomfortably long moment before speaking. “All the qualities you just mentioned, those are your qualities! You’re just so blinded by your admiration for her that you can’t see them within yourself! Yes, she might be all of those things, but you only see them in her because they’re your own qualities, which you project onto her. She must have lots of other qualities which you don’t see, because you don’t have, or perhaps don’t acknowledge them. We all see different qualities in different people, but we only see the qualities which we have in common. We have qualities which we accept, and when we see those qualities in others we admire them for it. But when we see the qualities we don’t accept, we disdain them for it. For example, we can both be stubborn, and I know that my stubbornness can piss you off. But that’s only because you’re stubborn too, but haven’t acknowledged it. You’re also creative, funny, sociable and independent, but you’re so focused on admiring these qualities in her, that you forget that they are you own qualities and you lose them in the process. So if you could just stop latching onto her and bring your attention to yourself more, perhaps you could turn that toxic admiration into inspiration. Work on your music, ease up and enjoy going to parties on your own, even spending time alone to just be yourself. The more you project your best qualities onto others, the more you lose them within yourself, and I’m sure that she sees those same qualities in you but from a healthier perspective. When we admire people and their qualities, we place them on a pedestal built of our own potential”.
She relaxed and picked up the olive from the floor, casually putting it in her mouth.
“That was more than five seconds you know,” Roy said, eyes glinting.
The vegetarian pizza never came.
Who serves pizza with mint tea and ponchos?
Ask yourself this.
