Maybe if he’d known just how she liked her coffee, she’d still be alive.
That was an absurd thought, of course. Coffee preference had little to do with the tragic events that occurred two years (was it really that long?) ago. But hell, Trenton had run out of all other things to ponder on the subject. So he contented himself with steadily stirring his own mug while staring out the window of the diner. He lifted the mug to his lips to take a nice, healthy sip. It tasted like ass, he concluded. However, it did keep him warm in the unusually cold building. Patrons refused to shed their protective layers of jackets and scarves while they huddled over steaming bowls of the soup-du-jour. Even our protagonist clutched his worn-out pleather jacket around himself. Texas was not supposed to be this cold, even in December.
With a hint of sadness he recalled late nights huddled around the tiny metal fire place, fed only by shredded newspaper. The lights on the tiny plastic Christmas tree were the only other source of light in the room. Their bodies were the only other source of heat. Those were the days.
A heavy sigh, a generous tip, and out protagonist made his way out into the winter cold.
Twenty minutes later we find him descending quite rapidly from the roof of a building. It isn’t until about halfway down that he realizes this might have been a bad idea. How would his small company survive with this kind of publicity? What would his dear mother do without him? Who would feed his cat? Unfortunately, that’s only about as far as his thought train went before a sudden halt. Gravity has the nasty habit of lacking an emergency break.
ldcarson 