Apologies for Spillages

Her cup of coffee was delivered with a sachet of sugar. As the café’s sole employee plonked the cup down on the formica surface a slurp of brown liquid spilled on to the table. “Sorry”, said the greasy-haired waitress.

With nothing else to do the customer opened the sachet and let its grains spill out on to the table. She didn’t take sugar in coffee but opened the sachet anyway. “I’ve paid for it”, she said in a low mumble, not intending anyone to hear.

The grains scattered on the table and some were absorbed by the split coffee. Others fell to the floor, where the waitress’s feet cracked them like ants’ eggs as she passed by to wipe down a neighbouring table with her filthy dishcloth.

With only half her lukewarm coffee drunk, the customer rose and bumped into the waitress as she threw back her chair.

“Sorry” she said, not looking at her.

Outside the café a man sat in the doorway of a permanently closed shop, holding up a plastic coffee cup. “Spare change?” he muttered.

“Sorry”.

A mother with a young child on a bike with stabilisers came by. The child careered into the man, knocking his beaker of coins to the ground.

“Say sorry to the man”. But the child did not, and the mother did not insist.

It was bin day, and the men were pulling wheeled bins into place ready for the truck to come along. One of the men did not see the café customer as she walked past and he bumped into her.

“Sorry”.

She took offence and pushed over the bin that the man was wheeling. The lid fell open and the rubbish spilled into the road.

“Sorry”, she said.

It lifted her mood to see the anger of the bin man as he tried to push the detritus backed into the bin as the bin lorry approached. She stepped backwards into the road, paying no attention to what was behind her.

That was why she did not see the car that sped past the bin lorry, being driven by a young man who was high on drink and drugs. Her body was flung high into the air and landed on the road. What spilled on to the tarmac was the colour of neither sugar nor coffee.

The young man drove on, not aware of what he had done. He did not say Sorry, but would not have been alone that day in not meaning it had he done so.

© John Welford