Walking into the café was like stepping into an aquarium. On the moon. The light was somehow completely different from the normal outside light, and the air seemed cooled by a subterranean draft.
She immediately found herself considering that this place could not be very popular among Ukrainians. After a year and a half, the Ukrainian desire to avoid drafts, cross-ventilation, or any other sort of fresh-air introduction to inside environments, had become embedded in her mind.
In fact, looking around, this café was sparsely populated. A roundish lady at the counter, possibly Polish, polishing something. Her name might be Rosy, if this were a book in which people had names that matched their appearances. Luckily, it’s real life, and so there’s no such need. Also, the lady in question was most likely Ukrainian. She still is. In the present tense. Also in the present tense exists a shadowy sort of waitress/ cleaning lady, hovering over a small table in the corner where a book is flapped open, showing its lettery belly to this slight woman, bent over the pages as if to sniff them directly into her brain.
The remainder of the café is empty.
The display case, however, is sparklingly full of sugar and temptation.
Rosy the polisher doesn’t even look up as her only customer approaches. Let the display case do its job, she always thinks to herself. But she thinks it in Ukrainian. She’s like that. Ukrainian.
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