Overheard at Table 3: One verse of a song which will never be finished

 

Jimmy fell down in the street during a pouring rain

Learned what science could never teach him about pain

Sally tapped the glass of the window outside the union hall

asked if they had a phone could she make a call

MR

2020-1003

Overheard at Table 3: 2 Timothy 1:7

 

Power, Love, and a Sound Mind.

Christians ... true followers of Christ, have no cause to run around like whiny babies.

Overheard at Booth 1: Morphine

 Husband: How's your back doing, baby?

Wife: It hurts so bad now I can barely stand it.  I just want to go home and lay down.

Husband: So sorry.

Wife: Do you know anywhere we can get some morphine?

Husband: Morphine?

Wife: Yes.  I don't know how much longer I can stand this.

Husband: Geez, baby, do I look like the guy from Breaking Bad?

Wife: OK, then how about our daughter, then?   She's got some friends who are nurses.

Husband: I'll text her.

Overheard at Booth 5: Insane Asylum

October spent her formative years at the Caldwell Insane Asylum, upstate New York.

She says it was a good preparatory school:

She keeps hair samples in clear plastic bags, liquified skin samples in corked beakers.

All meticulously recorded.

[originally posted as Horrorprompt 382 "Insane Asylum"]

Overheard at Table 4: Scraps

 

Lipstick promises and
Roisín eyes,
Meet the feel of Russian steel
And these subway lullabyes.

MR

2020-1007

Overheard at Booth 5: October

 He spoke in hushed tones, as though he was afraid that someone would hear him, there, sunk in the booth with an eye on the door.  He told me her name, "October" and he said it with such fear, an unnatural, bone-chilled fear.  He spoke it as though just saying her name would cause her to appear out of thin air.

I tried to assure him that he was safe.  It was mid-afternoon, and there were plenty of people in the café.  Nothing was going to happen to him here.

He just said, "You don't know.  You just have no idea!"

He just muttered "October" until I, too, felt the chill.

Overheard at Table 2: Yet Another October

And it's yet another October
waiting impatiently for the rain.
nightfall again,
there's no way out of these blues,

but at least there is a Hunter's Moon,
hanging full and low like a fruit of the 
obsidian vine,
orchestrated night, listening to
the chirping of the night toads calling 
to their toad lovers, staving off 
the loneliness for awhile,

the mornings become eclectic,
a touch of chill followed by the 
bout of heat, until day fades again
to night, for another round of 
wine and a prayer for forgetfulness.

Another October, 
which is really nothing more than 
an ode to a dying September,
and an open door to the chill of Winter.

MR

2020-1002