Sitting in the cafe he cannot stop thinking about the bike. The coffee gives him a headache and noises seem closer than they are. He thinks how mortified at some point must have meant something different.
A black piece of fabric drapes over the drum kit. Not to hide, to restrict. Four cymbals like varying sizes of coolie hats or wide brimmed bowlers, hang from a makeshift frame. Thick rope holds them to a crossbar and they dangle rather shoddily, as if from a child's mobile of the solar system, where every planet is surrounded by brass rings. Although there is no movement in this miniature galaxy. They sit suspended so still and silent. Their stillness emphasised by their silence. The piano, also covered sits still under mustard yellow canvas and black material patterned with large turquoise and white stepped triangles.
As the coffee cools he cannot stop thinking about the bike. He receives an e-mail saying the toothpaste got there. She can now brush her teeth in hospital, he pictures her smile and for a second he stops thinking about the bike.
Raising his head up and slightly to the right he tries to picture the glasses he tried on two weeks ago. He damns his power of imagination for failing in being able to construct faces. Faces he knows well that still evade him, lacking in the nuances and subtleties of topology and movement that make it that face.
As hunger begins to feed in he cannot stop thinking about the bike, and the bag of half eaten bombay mix back at the studio. The brand new, freshly unsheathed sketch book and still shop sharp pencil lay untouched on the table, because he cannot stop thinking about the bike. And the truck. And the police men. And he feels like he should go. Back to the studio, to eat, look at her smile, and try and forget about the bike.
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