Coffee Talk with Sartre

Saturdays bring her oxygen, grit, and other necessary elements of life devoid in the five days prior. The cute grapefruit waitress wearing her eyes thick with black notices Petra's empty coffee mug. "More?"

Petra only nods in affirmation and sits back against the wooden chair to allow the refill. How beautiful the statement, here at this dirty little cafe, that chairs and tables do not have to be new nor matching to serve coffee to this earthy public.

How refreshing, Petra thought, after the string of sterile corporate lunches in squeaking pleather chairs and synthetic air. She reflects on the chain restaurants in the suburbs with frickin' plates and cloth napkins matching the thematic wall paint, all strenuously calculated for a specific genotype, the yuppy corporate customer with expense accounts and no originality.

Petra reviewed her Saturday outfit. With a sigh of relief she passed her self test. Indigo Hemp skirt, olive green organic cotton leggings, black soy/cotton t-shirt, and a hand-strung turquoise choker definitely matched her true ethics, her real identity. Not one item from a "Big Box" store, she knew. She also knew nobody in her office would be caught dead in hemp, let alone earth shoes. She smiled to herself and sipped her proud organic fair-trade coffee as if it were her patriotic duty.

If Jean-Paul Sartre sat down across this table from her, he would ask Petra why she is selling copiers for a living. He would say, "Petra, have you thought of what you are doing day to day? Have you not looked deep into yourself in search of why you are here? Where is the meaning in your life?"

Petra rubbed her forehead, always a bit furrowed, this forehead. Her eyes would meet Jean-Paul's while her lips shriveled up and her cheeks glowed. Jeal-Paul would light a cigarette, sit back, and blow smoke in her face. Then he'd raise his hand and flick his wrist to point to the empty space before him, "Waitress, a port." Then he would return to his criticism of Petra.

"Well, Mademoiselle? You think you have it all figured out? Do you?"

"No." Petra would flap that word on the table like a soggy card, like a teenager would, and she'd feel small and stupid, like a teenager would, only she is thirty-two now.

"What are you going to do about it? I'm not going to ask you if you are happy, I know you are not. You are miserable like the rest of us. Go ahead, call yourself an artist, you are one of sorts, but do you feed yourself in this sense? Or are you killing yourself slowly while this alter-corporate-ego develops into a stronger character?"

Petra had no idea Jean-Paul asked so many questions out loud. She assumed he only criticized people and their embarrassing lives on paper.

"I am making connections," Petra would state, still feeling lame and nauseous.

"Excusez-moi. But of course, you must get those connections to survive in this world. How could you go on without those connections? I can see now that copier connections could truly get you places. All that paper and ink must have some relation to where you want to go in life." He would blow more smoke in her face.

"Hey!" Petra would growl through grit teeth. "Who asked you to pester me anyway? What's so wrong with my life? I'm doing just fine." Saliva would foam on her lips.

"Peut-être. Yet, what causes these hives?" Jean-Paul would point to the strange red blotches and flesh buttons on her arms and neck.

"We don't know yet. Might be allergies." Petra would unconsciously started clawing at her arms, creating alarmingly red puffy streaks.

"Allergies? Au contraire! It is stress. You could be literally sick of all that corporate crap, the rules, the facade you feel you have to wear, all that shit. Why bother? Why put yourself through that wretched masquerade?"

Petra would try to hold back tears and swallow down the fury. She hated how right he was all the time. "What else should I do, huh? A job is a job. I'm paying my bills. I get weekends off. I have benefits. Nothing wrong with that."

Jean-Paul would look around himself, notice the other people in comfortable nice clothes, sharing interesting educated conversations, enjoying a bottle of wine or frothy cappuccinos. "So, this corporate bullshit, this your joie de vivre? Vas-y! But let me ask you this. How many hours of your life are you working with people you despise?"

Petra would lean forward on the table, chewing each word like tough jerky, "At least its only forty hours a week now, as opposed to the sixty plus hours I spent dressing fat, mean, rich women in a tourist town." Then she would cough on his new puff of smoke.

"You are making excuses now."

"Yeah? So?" the internal teenage cringe again, Petra would feel her neck sting.

"Tout suit!" he would say with his eyes on fire. "Let us write your resignation letter!"

The black-eyed waitress looked at Petra. "You need some ice water or something?"

Petra noticed her face radiated heat like a third-degree burn and her armpits fumed with the same muskiness she gets on airplanes. "Yes, I guess I do, with lemon, please."

As the waitress started back inside in her tall black boots, and blue-streaked pig-tails, Petra called, "Wait! Would you happen to have pen and paper as well?"

--The End--