Espresso Love (A Dystopian Japan Novel) #Wattys2014

Consequentially

"Hmmm," she trailed off. I watched the rise and fall of her breathing, her breasts.

Then she took my hand suddenly and placed it over her chest.

"Do you feel it?"

She was warm. "Your heartbeat?"

"There's more to it."

I remained silent. Her warmth bled up my fingertips through my veins. I realized how whole and alive she felt under my hand. She was real. I felt an overwhelming desire to kiss her. So I leaned over and did so. She closed her eyes.

"I've started to understand," she finally said, after a while. "I'll make sure you feel it eventually, what I can now. It'll take some time."

"How are you going to do that?"

But she had fallen asleep.

We took turns fixing simple budget meals, and on the off-day, purchased stale bento and pre-cooked yakisoba from a convenient store nearby. The only thing we did crave was good coffee from the cafe where we had met. Home-made Nescafe did not curb our demanding connoisseurship. Her specifics and my shifting spontaneity. She asked if it would be safe to venture to the Starbucks down three blocks but answered to her own misgivings - she had a continual presentiment that the Sounds were indeed assiduously combing through the city. She had wanted her chai latte no doubt, but I suggested a shot of espresso to spice it up. She expressed her remorse about it quite vocally. Perhaps being able to avoid the cold was a blessing in disguise, I told her, but I could tell she was restless. She had been the one to initially launch our great escapade after all and Christmas was in a few days. No doubt her adventurous spirit was impeded. I felt guilty that we couldn't partake in seasonal activities nor could I purchase a gift for her. Still, I watched her composure and determination recover and rebuild tenaciously like a spider repairing its web.

On Christmas Eve, just as we had finished watching Christmas programs on television and were laying out the futons, she stopped, dropping her blankets and looked off into blank space for a good five minutes, like there was something within or beyond the wall. I had grown accustomed to her occasional cognitive excursions, some from seconds to ten minutes at a time. But I couldn't get used to when she would wake up in the middle of the night.

"They're here," she says, when she finally breaks out of reverie.

"Here? Right now?"

"Yes."

We had been expecting something like this. I intend to reach for the baseball bat but she holds out her hand. "It's okay. I don't think it's anything momentous yet."

So we sit down in the dark, side by side instead, waiting for something to happen. I hear the tick of the clock in the kitchen and the hum of the old fridge. The darkness itself doesn't seem particularly threatening, but the silence is weighted like something had died in the ventilation system.

"Listen," she says.

I keep quiet and try. I hear nothing out of the ordinary. Just electric appliances and the passing of time. I hear her light breathing and my heartbeat. Then, her heartbeat. Surely that isn't what she was referring to.

"I don't hear anything."

"They're coming." There is almost a reverence in her voice.

"Who? How many?"

"The Images, I don't know, one? Two?"

"What do they want?"

"I don't know. They don't have thought processes. I won't know until They're right on our doorstep."