The Girl With Green Eyes

I watched my pen etch crooked black letters across the page of my moleskin, making notes about dreams I had and stories I wanted to write. Often when I jot notes in my notebook, they’re in the first person, reminding myself about wisps of stories or moments I want to stuff in a book somewhere if I ever get the wherewithal to write another. When I want to clear my head enough to write like that, I hunker down in the back of one of half a dozen different coffee houses littered through out my normal routes.

For some reason, sitting anonymously in the back corner of a room dripping with the scent of fresh coffee is always the sort of pick me up I need when I’m struggling with new ideas.

The anonymous solitude is always welcome, but there is always the risk of being recognized.

Indeed, it can get annoying when some acquaintance or another who wants to catch up or opine about politics or chat about films recognizes you, but it comes with the territory. It’s worse when you can’t remember their name.

But there I sat, watching my fist work across the paper, leaving behind a trail of my consciousness, pausing every moment or two to look around the room to refuel my head. Once I’d finish my idle gazing about the room, I would restart, with a new line, a new sentence, a new thought.

A man is sitting on the other side of the coffee shop, I find myself writing, with bright and brand new blue jeans, and a flannel shirt that still has the creases from it’s original folding. His gold watch, hip-holstered phone and overly complicated drink, paid for with a wad of cash clipped neatly in his front pocket, give him away as someone not accustomed to dressing down. He’s probably less accustomed to sitting down and enjoying his… well, when it takes two sentences to order, is it still coffee?

I looked up again, hoping for more inspiration but was met with the most vibrant pair of green eyes I’d ever seen. They were like a pair of translucent jade emeralds with a bright, beautiful light shining through them, rimmed around the edges with a dark, crisp pine green. They belonged to a girl at the counter, waiting politely to order her coffee.

Affected, I looked back down to my writing and described her eyes in my book and bobbed back up for another look.

Had I seen those eyes before?


To read the rest of this story, you can purchase it here for the Kindle in the collection "The Accidental Date and Other Stories of Longing, Romance and Woe", or click the button below to order a .PDF of the collection.

The collection contains 11 other stories from me, Bryan Young.