So what

.

What? It's really nothing. It doesn't matter.

"It doesn't matter!" roared a beautiful young woman in the café. Her red dress looked bloodily stained with wine. The wine was dripping between the protagonist's fingers. He sat, practically hiding under his skirt. He secretly licked the sweet drink from his fingertips, knuckles, and fingernails. Then he slumped under the table. And he stayed that way until the end.

"But really, it doesn't matter!" she continued. She stared at the man who had done nothing and sat sipping his cappuccino, the sweetish taste of whipped cream. He felt the sugar from the coffee seeping between his first and second gears, where a dangerous gap lay. It was going to hurt. The man was a dentist.

"You'll clean it for me!" She made a small, artificial fuss, because that was what he thought. He thought: I'll wait until the end, then I'll say it wasn't me. But was the end ever going to come?

She smiled delightfully brightly, and he thought she had very nice teeth. Maybe the competition was better after all?

He was young, after all, he could even drink this wine like the guy under the table. Strange. He'd never seen anything like it. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the waitress standing on her head. And he thought: aha. So it's normal.

The waitress was his girlfriend, after all, he liked talking to her. Sometimes he dreamed how nice it would be to support this poor, defenseless little thing, pregnant and unsure if it was him. But I guess so. Surely so. What was he thinking? Definitely so. He turned, winked, she understood, and brought him a second cappuccino. Then, pretending to whisper, she bit his ear. He laughed, just laughed. She spun around with the tray.

But the end was never coming.

"Excuse me, are you even listening to me?! My dress. It's red.

" "We all know that," the guy under the table said. He had already licked his wine, he was getting bored. As he was nudged on the shoulder, he fell silent and snuggled against the single, silver, lonely, and oh-so-sad leg of the round table. The dentist can never remember who finally hit him, because maybe if he'd continued, everything would have been as he wanted. Both he and the gentleman under the table.

The insistent smile of the lady's beautiful teeth forced him to ask Columbine for a cloth and some water. She asked distractedly if he'd poured himself a cappuccino.

"That's hard to argue with; we only have Jelp at home," she said, looking out the window.

"No. That lady is insistent on my attention," he pointed to Czerwona, who was sitting lightly at the table. Columbine laughed absently, briefly glancing into the lady's dark eyes. Then she smiled at him and handed him the cloth.

"I also require your attention." She didn't know how much would change. Or why. And that her son, now sitting comfortably in her womb, will say at the age of 16

"It's your fault I don't have a father." And Columbine would remember that moment. And she would know it had begun and ended right then.

He wiped thoroughly because he hated messy work. But nothing came off. For 10 minutes, he was the laughingstock of the group sitting in the circle. He thought about the cabinet he had to hang in the kitchen, in their shared apartment. He thought about the new nursery for the child. About a Christmas present for Columbine. It didn't occur to him to focus on that awful dress. The guy, clinging to the leg of the table, nodded at him.

"Are you really sitting here?" he asked in disbelief.

"Of course," the guy whispered and smiled. His teeth were exceptionally bad. The dentist grimaced.

"You know what, man... I'm a dentist. This is my business card." He pulled a piece of paper, shimmering with colors, from his pocket.

"I'll call you if you need it.

" "It's here."

"I'll call you then."

It was getting downright boring. He stood up and said,

"Please," she grimaced. She stood up too.

"You're taking me home," he knew she wouldn't object. Not to her.

"And there will be toast for dinner tonight," Columbine whispered knowingly. She winked, knowing she'd be arriving soon. And he remembered her standing in that window that said:

GOOD COFFEE.

He'd taken her home, taken her to church, taken her back many times, brought her back to his place. And so it went. Always. Twenty years. He hadn't seen Columbine. Now he sometimes liked to sit in his slippers in front of the TV and watch Czerwona have fun at parties without him. Because the invitation never said "with her husband." He wouldn't. She wouldn't.

He hated her for what she'd done to him. He hated that red dress stained with wine. That stain hadn't washed out.

Sometimes he wants to call Columbina and ask how his son is doing. But he's never seen his child. Columbina is alone and unhappy.

The phone rings. He goes over and answers:

"Excuse me, could I make an appointment?" He's making an appointment for today because he has nothing better to do anyway.

The doorbell rings.

He opens the door.

"Good morning," a smile of completely decayed teeth greeted him. That smile, that of a crazy guy. He's speechless.

"I did come after all!" he said, still grinning.

"Oh," he said, "were you real?

" "Real," he replied proudly.

"And I thought I'd had a cappuccino.

" "Not so. Sorry about that... I stained that lady's dress, and you're the one to blame.

" "What? It's really nothing. It doesn't matter."