Three frantic minutes
Sherlock is lying on the sofa, getting distracted by all the imperfections and misshapen stains on his ceiling. It's already been three days since he solved his last case and his withdrawal symptoms are beginning to take over his sanity.
"Lets go out for breakfast," I suggest, just so he can relax a bit and eat something.
"I have been eating lately, you know?" he replies, almost as if he had read my mind.
Well, it's true. Unlike his alimentation during cases (which is non-existent), he does eat a bit from time to time when he's not working. On a good day he even eats three meals, although their quantities are quite questionable.
Perhaps I should start getting worried over this. I can picture the headlines: 'Anorexic detective solves a new mystery.' I can't let that happen.
"Come on, Sherlock, it's only breakfast."
I hear him let out a strangled sound that resembles a defeated sigh and I remind him that it's freezing outside. He puts on his coat and tells me that he wants to go to a cafeteria that's two blocks from here. He ventures no further explanations, but I know he wants to go there because it has a smoking section.
We walk side by side in silence and when we reach our destination, Sherlock approaches the nicotine filled fog without saying a word. Luckily for me, there are no tables available and my friend has to settle for a spot on the non smoke friendly sector, which makes his mood go even more somber by the second.
"We can come back tomorrow," I assure him, both to console him and to give him a fair warning that I intend on dragging him out of our flat to this place every single morning for the foreseeable future. I check the menu, although I know I'll end up ordering the usual.
He doesn't say anything, he doesn't even look at me, he's too busy contemplating the floor and then staring at a young woman that's sitting across the room. That truly gets my attention. Sherlock showing interest in a woman? I focus my gaze on her, looking for blood stains or any other anomaly that might justify his behavior. There's nothing, though. She's just a girl drinking her morning coffee.
"We have to leave, John" Sherlock says, standing up abruptly and snatching the menu out of my hands.
"What? We just got here." I realise I must sound confused, I tend to sound that way when he carries himself like this and I don't understand what he's doing. "You didn't even eat anything yet."
"I'm in the middle of a case, I can't waste my time with that nonsense."
Even though I want to tell him that eating isn't nonsense, but a fundamental human need and that although he's odd and anti social, he is still human, just like the rest of us… I'm too curious to ignore his statement.
"Case?"
Sherlock nods and walks over to the exit door.
"You never see anything, John," he reprimands me, while holding the door open for me.
The door's frame is scratched. Three scratches. It was done with a metal. No available tables. I don't want to go to the other sector. I'm going to the other sector.
A man to my right is calling somebody on his mobile. It's an old phone. 2009. Fading keys. He presses eleven numbers. Musical notes. 07467-825583. It's not a home number. He's sweating and looking over his shoulder. Suspicious. Low voice, mud on his left shoe, red new tie, wild hair, his back hurts.
I take a few steps towards a table. It's dirty. The waitress recently cleaned it with a wet cloth, but the corners are still sticky. What is it? It's something sweet. What? Syrup. I look at the chair, it's made of oak and it has a loose leg. Will it hold my weight? Yes. I sit down.
John takes a seat as well. His brow is frowned. He grabs a menu. Why? He knows what he's going to order, he always orders the same thing. I should snatch the menu from his hands. The menu. Cheap printing. Grammatical errors. It was done by a Graphic Design student. Second year.
A woman walks right by me. She's accompanied by two kids. They don't look at her while whining and clutching her hands. She tells them to shut up, but doesn't look down. She's not their mother. They don't want her to be their mother. Stepmother.
There are twelve tables here. Customers' ages range from eight to sixty seven. There's a window next to him. Passers-by glance inside the cafeteria. They lick their lips, blue lips, cold creeps under their clothes. Cold, hungry, tired.
John is still reading the menu. Useless. He has dark circles under his eyes, he didn't sleep well. His shoulder hurts, he doesn't even notice, he's used to it by now. I stare at the floor. Different sets of footprints overlap. A mobile phone is ringing. Irish music. The floor is tattered. John turns the page. There's a sweets wrapper on the floor, next to one of the tables.
There is a girl sitting at the table, she's sipping her coffee. Blonde, dyed hair, thin, skinny, bulimic, thirty years old. No. Tired, very tired. Twenty seven years old. She doesn't like coffee. She has a notebook, she's looking at it, she isn't reading. John hasn't made up his mind yet. What is taking him so long? He will order the usual.
The girl grabs a pen. Left-handed. No. Not left-handed. Her right wrist is covered by a cream-coloured brace. Tendonitis. She scratches a word, three words. It's a list. She takes another sip and checks the time on the crooked clock that's hanging from one of the walls. They've been recently re-painted.
John is looking at me now. He always looks at me in a way I can't decipher. Why? He then looks at the young woman. Why is he looking at her? I don't want him to look at her. Someone just left the smoking section. I should go there. Why do people have breakfast? I'm not hungry. I miss the mind-numbing smoke. The girl strikes-through yet another word.
The waitress returns from the kitchen. She hasn't asked us what we want yet. She's alone. A man tells her she got his order wrong. She sighs and apologises. Short nails. Long fingers. She hums an unembellished melody. She's an artist. She doesn't want to work here.
John focuses on his menu once more. The blonde girl checks the clock again and bites her inner lip. She's done that before today, several times, her lip is swollen. I want to smoke. She's in pain, she rubs her wrist. She finishes up her coffee and deposits all the contents from her wallet between her mug and the napkin ring. She then puts her notebook inside her bag. It's her favourite bag. It's amended and falling to pieces, but she won't replace it. Her touch lingers on the fabric a moment too long, the bag has prompted a long forgotten memory. She will miss this bag. She will miss many things. She gets up and doesn't bother waiting for the change.
The waitress leaves the room, the tray in her hand is filled with dirty dishes and glasses. The man is still talking on the phone. He wiggles his fingers, huffs a laugh and looks around him. Lover. Secret lover. Why is he calling her at this time of the day?
The blonde girl approaches the exit.
"We have to leave, John."
I stand up. The unfaithful man shuts his eyes and shifts uneasily in his chair. Ah. Why is he calling him now? I snatch the menu out of John's hand and place it atop one of the sticky corners.
"What? We just got here." Please, we've been here for centuries. "You didn't even eat anything yet." Eating? Ah, yes, food. No. No hunger, no time.
"I'm in the middle of a case, I can't waste my time with that nonsense."
John stares at me. He wants to say something, he doesn't say it, he says something else entirely. Yes, there is a case. I nod. Suicide. Voluntary? No. Somebody is forcing her to do this. She doesn't want to do it. She's already gone. I must follow her. Or not. If she died, the mystery would be harder to solve. I'd enjoy the difficulty. No, human being, right. Alright then, saving her it is. Maybe. Let's go. I walk over to the door. Why is John so slow? The leg. Of course. I don't like it. Now I'm hungry. There's no time. I'm leaving.
"You never see anything, John."
We go out and I see Sherlock is set on following the girl he was checking out a few minutes ago. She is his case. I let out a sigh I didn't know I had been holding.
Sherlock walks fast. My leg hurts but I don't complain because I like seeing him like this, so animated. He's always so passionate about his cases. It's dreadful that it takes death and imminent danger to get him in such a good mood, but that's irrelevant, what's important is that he's alright.
"You're supposed to be relaxing" I say, a smile curling up my lips.
"I can never relax."
And that's true enough.
Although I was clearly incapable of noticing what was going on around me in order to realise something was wrong with that woman, I did observe him. I always do. Always. It's such a shame that a man with his keen skills is oblivious to the reason why I can't see anything, but him.