Tali Libenstein
Mug
When I see him again, he has a dry, flaky cut on his left hand. He rubs at it incessantly as he orders a coffee. Filtered, a bit of milk, and yes, he’ll take two sugars in there too, please. The usual. When he has the coffee in his hand he turns and looks at me. I can feel his eyes on me as he walks by, but not in the way that you look at a face you recognize. No narrowed eyes or tilted head. He just looks, sees me, and moves on. How powerful yet diminishing to be nothing to someone when they are something to you. I search the back of him as he leaves as though perhaps he’ll feel me and know. But he doesn’t turn, and he doesn’t remember.
I look down at the sludge of green in my mug and imagine the growth of life in its swamp. Microscopic organisms as hard to contain as the universe itself. Millions of strangers’ choices have led me here, to this greasy table. To the moment of him and his coffee and his hands, which I can only remember as soft and gentle as they touched me. I bring the cool rim of the mug to my lips and let the dregs drip heavily down its insides. Cold and gritty, but swelling. Alive.
Tali Libenstein
Tali Libenstein is currently pursuing an MA in English Literature at the University of Montreal. Perhaps as a result of her own history of mental health struggle, she loves writing about women in the midst of meltdowns, depressive fits, and overall states of irrationality. Exploring the psychological condition through language is her very favourite form of therapy. Positive or negative, she only hopes her work makes you feel.