Jesus of Nazareth, son of God, the redeemer sat cross-legged in the very large, very old leather armchair across from me slurping from a bowl of soup. Loudly.
His sleeves were tucked out of the way of his thin nimble fingers and he seemed oblivious to the heat evident by the steam rising lazy into the air above him. After a long moment of his serene countenance lost in reflection or bliss, J opened his eyes as if startled and glanced at us in apology. Neither Lucifer nor myself cared and the rest of the cafe was, at that moment, vacant. I was noticing a pattern.
L sat to my left, stirring tea that smelled of fennel and orange and decadence and looked to be impossibly hot. He used an ornate ceramic tea stirring rod and a cup and saucer that came from the same set. Something with thin green vines decorating the lip of the cup and the rim of the saucer.
His stirring had a distinct and rhythmic pulse and his pinky finger stuck right out unwavering- its nail slightly longer than the others and the product of the very best manicure ever conceived. L fixed his gaze on me while taking a sip of the tea. It smelled incredible and i know it must have tasted wonderful and his gaze never wavered. As often as I have seen him do this, it always unnerved me. L didnt care about that either.
After the sip, he lowered the teacup to the saucer, brushed three crumbs off the folded leg of his tailored suit of a deepest darkest blue reserved for the murky depths where krakken live, and folded long strong fingers in his lap.
I wondered briefly what sort of soul the personal tailor of Satan must have been. What must those sessions involve? At this point in our dealings I knew better than to assume that any of the inane human imaginings of what hell is like were correct. But my brain couldnt help itself.
He was probably an older looking man, very thin rimmed glasses over eyes of the palest faintest whisper of color. A color that might remember what grey must have been like long ago. A full trimmed beard of silver framing thin frail lips. I imagined he works on a suit with tape measure draped across his forearm and pins pushed into a cushioned brace around his wrist, its jacket hung on an honest looking coat rack just past whatever serves as the door.
The skin on his hands is paper thin with deep fine wrinkles from eons of practice at his profession. Music from the 30’s drifts across the plushly carpeted floor in his spotless parlor as he attends his client.
He works silently, precisely , and impeccably. Day and night. Forever and ever. And with the eons stretched ahead and behind played out for him and for me, and the enormity of time unending spent with needle in fingers and fabric forever, he broke the fourth wall and looked up at me. Defeated. All gone. He didnt call out, he did not plead with me or lament. Those tired faded eyes slid off me and back to work. Always back to work. And despair blossomed in me.
I returned to the present moment in time to catch both J and L looking at me. Through me.
J looked.. sad. Sympathetic. The smile your father gives you when youve had a bad day at school but dont want to talk about it. A calm started to rise in me when my gaze slid to L, And that calm died a horrible gruesome death. He smiled at me. Slowly. Deliberate. The smile a cat would make with little yellow feathers wafting down to his feet after the hunt and the flurry. He meant every muscle.
So we talked about the weather.