He sits. Does nothing, says nothing, doesn't drink or eat. He just sits. Even though he's in a pub. He's been sitting here for hours. Silently. He observes. A few tables from him is a young pair. They haven't noticed the grey man. Nobody notices him. They never do. A curse as it is a blessing. The wall behind him is covered in a light pink-ish wood. He had turned away from it. Pink. The colour of love. The ideal love, the picture-perfect-love-story. Not anymore. If he had ever even really believed there would be such a thing. Had he? Even if he wanted to, he couldn't remember. During his earlier visits he had, apparently, still somehow believed in that idea. On the pink wall, there was her name. Scribbled on, many, many times. But never the same. As she was never the same. She always changed. As he did. He had turned away with disgust, today, turned away from this picture of his own decay. This wall represented no longer his hopes, now she represented his failure. He hadn't failed a task or duty, he hadn't even failed his life. He had failed himself. He had always sat at this table. He was a man of habit. At least that was what other people had called him. But that was not the case. He just didn't like change. He never had liked it in the first place. Change was inconvenient. Change didn't suit him. The young woman laughs. Now that sounds has lost all loveliness and melody it had harboured before this evening. At least that is what he is hearing now. If only he could sit at the other side of her table, to hear her laughter, he is sure it would sound marvellous, like a sypmphony, written just for him. But he knows he would never dare to sit at her table. That would be change. She probably wouldn't notice him even then. Him, the silent and grey looking man. And now, that she has company, even more impossible. Now, everything had changed. No nice smile that she had always thrown across the room, directed towards him, no raised hand as a silent greeting. None of these, almost self-understanding gestures that he had come to cherish so much. Every Thursday and Saturday he would sit at this table. And every Thursday and Saturday she would enter the Pub at 7 pm and sit down at always the same table, a few meters from him. She would open her Laptop, not bring some stranger like today. She would order an Espresso and on Saturdays she would order a Whiskey as well. Highlander. She never drank anything else. She wouldn't order a Cosmopolitan like she had done today. And she would definitly never order a salad. If she waas ever hungry she would order a stew. And then she would write for hours. Completely silent, just as he would read in a matching silence. Sometimes he would seize his reading to look at her. Today she was loud. He hated this faccade she had put on today, this loud and happy woman she portrayed to this stranger. The strange man was even louder. Deafening stupidity colloded with the ears of the grey man. A metamorphosis into the negative. Like his table. Disfigured by the wall behind the grey man. Disfigred by his hopes that now came crshing down on him in shambles and shards. Disfugured by her. The yound author. From the very beginning he had known that she wrote books. He had watched her as she lived vicariously through her characters, he had watched her as she had laughed and cried with them. One day, before he had left the Pub, he had gone to her empty table. He had observed her leaving her receipt. Knowing that the old bartender and waiter always wrote the names of his customers on the upper right corner, he had pocketed the receipt. Lyla Hapton. He had looked up her books and he had read every single one of them. In his eyes they were underrated masterpieces. They conveyed so much of her own personality to him. He had recognized her in her characters. In her stories. He had recognized her in the short poems she would write between chapters. Now he watched a completely different person. He looks back at the table. Never had he read one of her books here. Never. He had explored her world of books in the loneliness of his apartment. Lost time. Because she would never see him as he saw her. At last, he can't take it anymore. Silenlty he stands up and leaves the Pub. He will never come back again. Ever.
"Espresso and Whiskey please, the usual."
The last Thursday evening had been hell. Terrible. Now it's Saturday, 7:10 pm and Lyla Hapton is sitting at her usual spot in her favourite Pub, ready to take on another chapter. Today she wanted to ask him. The grey man. But she doesn't see him. Every Thursday and Saturday he would be in this Pub, always sitting at a table against the wall. He would always read. Sometimes he would order an Earl Grey. Two pieces of sugar, no milk. He would nod at her as a greeting and sometimes he would lift a hand. She knew who he was. Edgar Wärter. One of the most famous book critics in the world. Lyla wished for nothing more than for him to read one, just one, of her books. But never ever would she dare to ask him to read her work. No, today she had wanted to ask if she could sit with him. If she could invite him for a tea. But she doesn't see him. And she doesn't see him the next Thursday or Saturday either. In fact she will never see him again. The book she is now writing on is about him. "The stranger in Grey.", it is called. But he will never read it. He will never read one of her books again. As he, with all his might, tries to forget about her, her image imprints itself into his mind to never leave again. And as she looks at the now empty table at the wall, her heart turns a little grey.