SHE WAS JUST A GIRL (Robert McCarthy)

He didn’t understand what she was saying.

“What?” he asked.
“I’m breaking up with you” she said in a flat tone.

He raised his hand to his forehead and began rustling his hair.

She was staring at him plainly with no emotion. From Andrew’s perspective she looked as beautiful as ever, but from his face I could tell he wanted to kill her.

I sat on the adjacent table eyeing the whole situation, while sipping on my cup of black. The diner we sat in smelled of cigarettes and bread. There were roughly ten people in the restaurant, from what I could see.

I could tell she chose this location because of the public nature of the place. If he started to complain or give out, he would look like the bad person of the situation. She was just a girl after all.

“Why?” his tone began to change from impartiality to passive aggression.

“It’s just not working out, you know how it is”. She looked at her nails and then to him, in order of which she had most care for.

I raised my newspaper to hide the smile which came across my face. I found this whole thing quite hilarious.

“Why can’t you give me a straight answer, I should have known this was coming. I should have known all along. You’re all the same. Lure people in with your deceit and then strike. Snakes, all of ye, snakes.”

He was moving out from the table gradually while still speaking.

“Never trust a woman. Never. Not after tonight. Oh no, never again.”

With that he got up and began moving towards the door, still shouting as he went. “Never to be trusted, never!”

I eyed him the whole way and then adjusted my attention back to the girl at the table. There was a rye smile on her face. The kind of smile you see sneaking across the face of a comic book villain. She walked out the door and turned right.

I took off my glasses and cleaned them before folding up my paper and downing the last few drops of my bitter cup of coffee. I left a fiver on the table and got up. I walked through the door and turned left.

I woke up the following morning at exactly 11.00 a.m. Luckily, the coffee in my house wasn’t as bad as that of the diner. I bought the best, and only the best.

I turned on the television to brighten my day but the story of an over-turned train in southern Germany darkened the mood.

“… and with the body count now at 126 and still rising, this is has now become the worst public transport accident in the last 25 years…”

There is something inside all of us which finds humour in the morbid. I think it’s the fragile nature of mortality, that the life which we lead and have so many plans for can be wiped out in a second.

I finished my coffee and got dressed.

I went to my room and opened my closet.

A pale hand fell from between my pairs of immaculately preserved pants and I fell backwards with shock.

It was her.

The girl from the restaurant. The break-up girl.

But how? Why? I ran out of the room and out my front door.

I was somehow transported into the diner again. What was going on? I looked around and it was entirely empty. Not a soul in sight.

I opened my eyes.

She was staring at him plainly with no emotion. From Andrew’s perspective she looked as beautiful as ever, but from his face I could tell he wanted to kill her.

I sat on the adjacent table eyeing the whole situation, while sipping on my cup of black. The diner we sat in smelled of cigarettes and bread. There were roughly ten people in the restaurant, from what I could see.

I could tell she chose this location because of the public nature of the place. If he started to complain or give out, he would look like the bad person of the situation. She was just a girl after all.