The Writers' Circle

As the steady rhythm of the blues marched from the speaker, and the young girl sat with her mother, the scene seemed still and oddly symmetrical. They sat in the window of the restaurant, along the large veneered table that stretched the length of the street façade. Both sat with their postures aligned, their arms placed upon the dark table top with seemingly minute precision of measure. Neither had a hair hanging below their chin line, though it could scarcely be imagined that the noose like ties holding in place their identically twisted buns atop their heads, could possibly be so relaxed as to let a wan hair escape. The coffee cups sitting in front of them, handles to the left, were void of a single run mark; the mother's sat alone upon its saucer, the daughters next to a few scrunched up, stained napkins. For a passer by to glance upon the front of the restaurant would have a similar effect to the double step synonymous to fairground mirrors, for the two deathly still patrons in the front window were almost identical in every respect. Even on second, third or fourth glances would any contrast between the two remain imperceptible. But I have been frequenting this eatery for just short of one and a half years, and I have seen, for every day but one of the previous four hundred and ninety days, the exact same routine, the exact same conversation, in fact, I have witnessed the exact same event repeated over and over to the point of absurdity. And I have watched a slender, gentle flower, forced to grow into a pot too small for it's adventurous roots, I have watched petals begin to fade from vibrant colours to pathetic drab and listless limpness. I have watched a flower starved of sunlight and water for so long that the roots themselves to have given up; I have watched a cruel, spiteful gardener, cutting the weak shoots, which aspired so greatly, craving the alms of the sun, but forced time and time again into subjugation.