"Another Coke."

"Another one? Are you sure? This is your third one today."

"If I wasn't sure I wouldn't be asking, now would I?"

The old, bearded gentlemen, faired a hard, stern glare, peering judiciously across the bar to the man who seated himself patiently, waiting, thinking, wondering. "Are you sure you want another one of those? Don't you think you should lay off?"

"When I wanna lay off, I'll lay off!" The dark haired man cries. "Is it a crime to enjoy the good things in life?"

"It is when you can't pay for it." The old gentlemen mumbles.

"Well who asked you?!"

"You did, you dummy!"

A girl with feverish red hair smirks, her eyes rolling in mocked astonishment. The girl is twenty five, twenty three on a good day, thirty on a bad. Her face is lean and her waist in hollow, empty of shame and regret and sorrow. The girl has never experience pain, nor has she experience any kind of joy or happiness. Sure, she is a perfectly content being, but she is not happy, nor has she ever been.

"Why don't you boys find somewhere else to bicker?" The girl suggests mockingly.

"What do you know?" The man spits.

"I never said I knew anything. I just thought the proprietor of this bar would enjoy a little peace. Would you not, Mr. Jacobs."

"Honey," the old gentlemen begins, "I haven't had peace since Vietnam, and it sure as hell ain't gonna start now?"

"And why is that, may I ask?"

"There just ain't no time for peace anymore. Everyone with their fancy smancy iPhone and iPods and icases and ilaptops and all that stupid shit. Ain't no one got time fore peace anymore."

"I dare say your wrong." The girl proposes with a gasp.

"Ha!" The young man drunkenly mocks, "You think you can beat the old man, do ya?"

"Well I never! I simply suggested the older gentlemen may be mistaken in this completely misrule circumstance."

"Your never gonna win an argument like that." The man grumble, half interested with his new Coke finally approaching.

"Who said anything about winning?"

Enthralled by his delight, the man doesn't respond. The girl is infuriated by such rudeness, but dares not pick a fight with a man twice her size, even if he is nothing but a bother.

"I'm just saying, sir." the young lady continues, "If you simply open your mind to the idea of peacefulness, it will come much quicker."

"Nothing ever comes quicker than death in this world, honey."

"Well I'll be! Your nothing but an old crank!"

"Ain't that so?! Well when your my age, you'll sure as hell find it hard not to be!"

"I dare say you're a liar!"

"And why, Ms. Lady, would I lie to a beautiful princess like you?"

The girls cheeks grow red with shy embarrassment, but her voice quickly steadies, "That's queen Isabelle to you, sir."

"Oh, well forgive me your majesty for my horrendous blunder!" The old gentlemen bows deeply.

"You are pardoned." The girl teases with a curtsy.

"You guys are a bunch of idiots!" The man sneers contemptuously.

"That is no way to talk to a queen!" The young lady snaps, appalled by such an insinuation.

"I'll talk however I so please!"

"Not in my shop, you won't!"

"You won't kick me out, old man! You don't got it in ya!"

"Don't it?"

"You don't got nothing!"

The young man was right, but the proprietor would never admit such a fallacy, and thus revolted in huff, escaping to the kitchen keenly hidden behind the small bar. The young man snickers.

"Now why did you do that?" The girl inquires, offended.

"Do what?"

"Scare the old man like that? He's just a child, you know?"

"He is far too old to be a child."

"You are never too old to be a child."

"Are you a child, Queen Isabelle?"

"I dare say I am?"

"And am I?"

"You could be."

"Ha!" The man spits mockingly, "And you could be a coo coo clock!"

"There's no need to get nasty!"

"Oh, I'm not being nasty. I'm simply pertaining to our delicate conversation."

"I dare say your a villain!"

"A villain? A villain? Well aren't me now, your all mightyness, for I have broken the code which all villains so vainly follow!"

"And what is that?" The girl inquires inquisitively.

"I have confessed the nature of my vanity."

"You have done no such thing!"

"Haven't I?"

"I dare say you haven't said a word!"

"Then what have I been saying?"

"Nothing but nonsense!"

"Is nonsense anything but nothing?"

"I suppose it could be something."

"Then it isn't nothing?"

"I suppose it could be. What are you getting at?"

"I'm not getting at anything, miss nosy. I'll I'm trying to say is I'm no villain, miss Isabelle, for if I was, I surely wouldn't be having this conversation with you."

"It's Mrs."

"So it is."

"And why, I dare ask, wouldn't this conversation be taken place?"

"Why! Your a damsel, aren't you?"

"How dare you!"

"Are you not?"

"I, sir, am a proud married woman! With two beautiful children!"

"Sure, sure. But do you love him?"

"Love who?"

"Your husband?"

"That, you pathetic scoundrel, is no place for a woman to speak!"

"And why not?"

"I dare say you are a villain!"

"And why is that?"

"You have no respect for a woman's privacy!"

"If privacy is what you want, than you shall get as you wish. But that is not what you want, and that is not why you're here."

"Do not dare to speak on my behalf!"

"I am speaking on no ones behalf. I am simply stating the facts of the situation."

"And what facts are those, Mr....Mr..."

"Collins."

"What facts are those, Mr. Collins."

"Well, it's a clock on a Tuesday."

"And?"

"And, you're here."

"Maybe I needed some peace and quiet!"

"If you needed peace and quiet, you would've attended the knitting circle, a park, or perhaps a library, but you would most certainly not attend a cafe, especially not one like this."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"Whatever you wish it to mean."

"I wish you would stop talking."

"And I wish you loved your husband."

"How dare you say such a thing! You villainous creep!"

"I am only a villain if I am wrong, and I suspect I am not."

"And how, sir, if you can be called that, do you deduce such a preposterous thing?"

"If peace and quiet is not what you wanted, which it certainly isn't, then it is company that you are searching for, and no person in love requires the company of anyone other than their lover."

"And what, you dastardly fiend, do you know about love?"

"I know you're out of it, and I know I'm in it. What more is there to know?"

"I dare say you've never been in love a day before in your life."

"And I'd dare say you're right. I've never been in love a day before, but today is not before, you see, for it is still yet to come."

"How dare you suggest..."

"I didn't suggest anything. Like I said, I am simply stating the facts."

"I dare say you haven't stated one true word."

"Yes, but the truth and the facts are rarely similar, my lady."

"How so?"

"I tell you I love you, and that may be a lie, for I have never been in love, but it is certainly a fact."

"Sir! That is no way to speak to a married woman."

"There is never a way to speak to a married woman. It seems all the good women won't have a word with me, for evidently they are all married."

"And so they must be, you scrupulous scoundrel!"

"I am many things, miss, but scrupulous is not one of them."

"Then what are you?"

"In love."

"Why!"

"Why what?"

"Well I've never heard a man so blunt."

"I dare say you've never heard a man before."

"How dare you speak of my husband as such a...a...a..."

"A what? A pussy? Well he is. Any man villainous enough to leave a girl like you is nothing but..."

"He did not leave me! And he never will! How dare you even..."

"He may not have left you, physically, but his love is long gone. And you know it. It's very hard to love someone who doesn't care for you, you see."

"What do you..."

"If he hated you, that would be different. That would be an easy fix. For, you see, if he hated you, that would mean he cares. But he doesn't care. He's completely indifferent, and that's why he'll never love you."

"Never?"

"Never."

"But...he said..."

"I'm sure he's said a lot of things. And I'm sure you've said a lot of things too. Yet here you are, eight a clock on a Tuesday, sitting in a cafe all by your lonesome, facing the barbaric curiosities of man and the belligerent prudence of women. Your a lady lost to the world, for everyone's forgotten to look."

"I don't suppose I like the way you speak, sir."

"Well my apologies, miss, but I know no other way of talking. The truth is kinda inherent in me, ya see, and when I see it, I gotsta say it. So here I am, seeing it as I do, saying it as I may. Whether you believe me or not is up to you, but that makes it no less true."

"What are you getting at? What do you want from me? Money? Food?"

"I don't want anything, Miss Isabelle. I am simply telling you so you may know. That man you call your husband ain't ever gonna love you, and ya can't love a man who has no feeling for you. I, on the other hand, am madly falling for you, and by what I can tell, you surely hate me."

"I dare say you've finally spoken the truth."

"But hate and love are just one step away, really more of a crawl, really. You'll be falling for me in no time."

"No time? Ha! Now I may laugh! Me, fall for you? Not ever!"

"What you believe to be true isn't always true, Miss Isabelle."

"Coke?" A gravely voice inquires.

"Yes, please." The young man smiles, sliding back to his chair some three stools away.

The girl stands, places her dues, and prepares to leave.

"I guess I'll see you tomorrow?" The young girl growls.

"That, Miss Isabelle, is completely up to you."

And though the girl loathed the boy with the abhorrence of a flood upon the sand, she couldn't help but smile, for the girl, for the first time in her tragic, meager life, cared.