Burden of Caring Heart

The quiet tunes of jazz were flowing through the cool café. Even though the door was shut, and the display window fixed a long while ago, the older structure still contained gaps through which the outside air could flow. It was not usually a problem during fall and spring, especially in summer, but it truly forced you to wear a coat in "Monso Rooster" during winter. Despite the trouble, it created one cosy atmosphere that is perfectly complemented by Arnold's coffee and Eugene's taste in music.

New clients came and those who already had their fill left, but two people in particular stood at the café for quite a long while. Their talk was occasionally elevated by a café worker, who came to them whenever there were no clients to serve. The two did not mind her company, although the woman in particular felt quite irritated about the lack of stability from the café worker's side.

"Hummingbirds are less hyperactive than you currently are. You either choose to sit down or go away." the woman said, to which the man in front of her replied, "Are you going to vouch for Jessie, in case Arnold will notice this, Sylvia?"

Sylvia hummed and turned away with her arms crossed. Jessie, however, turned to him with a frown.

"It would not be such a big deal, if you had helped me, Eugene."

"I am not wasting my day off to let you slack off." he said snarly, but Jessie pressed further, "You will soon have your Christmas vacations anyway, who in their right mind would take a day off just before them? And you spend this day off at the place where you work."

"Because this is literally the best place in the town!"

Jessie sighed and murmured, "More and more, you remind me of Arnold."

The man kept silent and instead took a sip out of his coffee. It was his favourite café crème, the café's speciality that was served any time of the day without shame. Besides the coffee cup was a book titled "The Gracie Allen murder case". Eugene peeked at its cover which illustrated a woman in stereotypical detective wear, even though the title sounded menacing, the cover itself was quite light-hearted and comical.

"And I took my day off because someone really wanted to discuss a book that I never read, right, Sylvia?"

Sylvia finally turned her gaze at him, but it was overflowing with irritation, she exclaimed, "Not my problem that you are so ignorant about the literature world, Monsieur buffoon. Arthur Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie, Ronald Knox, Van Dine, you are not familiar with any of these authors' works. And you had the nerve to call yourself a detective!"

Eugene crossed his arms and smiled, "Well, I am sorry for enjoying more grounded works. I can't discuss Les Misérables or The Hunchback of Notre Dame with you either."

"Victor Hugo is the only author whose works you ever read." noticed Jessie, to which Eugene replied, "Because he is a genius!"

"Well, I quite enjoy his novels too, they never fail to make me cry. His artistic skills were also fairly decent."

Sylvia was not able to keep up with the conversation, thus she tried to bring the topic back to her own interest.

"Regardless, the detective stories are really fascinating. I never thought of describing a crime to let people solve it for fun."

Eugene narrowed his eyes and said, "Did not you start reading them just recently?" The woman slowly nodded, which made Jessie wonder, "And what kind of books did you read prior to discovering the murder mystery genre?"

Sylvia casually replied, "War tactics and secret documents, naturally."

"Very funny." said Eugene, who took the book from the table and turned a few pages to quickly examine it. The book, however, was written in English, thus the man squinted and extended it back into Sylvia's hands. Sylvia was happy to accept her own book, she then opened it on the page with an illustration and showed it to Jessie.

"Even though Gracie Allen was a key to solving the mystery in this book, she was still such a fool. At times, it was irritating to read her dialogues, but I really noticed quite a few similarities between her and that man."

She pointed at Eugene which made Jessie giggle, Eugene only slowly shook his head, leaned in his chair and faced the white veil that spread through the street. He did not like winter, preferring the beauty of green colours during summer and spring, or the warm palette of fall. Towns and cities were the only places which were able to effectively use the dullness of white colour to shine in new light. In the end, there was no way for those colourful buildings to shed their paint.

And while exploring the patches of road that peeked out of the snow, he noticed two people coming closer to the entrance door of "Monso rooster". A smile spread across his face, since it meant more work for Jessie to do, but its sinistrality was quickly replaced by excitement, once he noticed familiar faces. Lawrence and Cossette decided to give them a visit.

Eugene glanced at Jessie at the time when the door opened. She snorted and turned around, but immediately stood up with an excited call, "Cossette! What would you like to order?"

"I am here too, Jessie." Noticed Lawrence, to which she replied, "Of course, I will take your order as well."

Even though Jessie's friendliness made even Eugene smile, Cossette only nodded at her words and dashed past her towards Eugene and Sylvia. Lawrence looked at her dumbfounded, scratched his forehead and smiled, "We will have 2 espresso, please."

"Oh, yes, one moment then."

After hearing their brief order, Jessie moved towards the kitchen. Two newcomers sat by Eugene's and Sylvia's table which irritated the woman, however, the man did not mind their company. As soon as Lawrence put his elbows on the table and looked around it, he noticed the peculiar cover of Sylvia's book.

"Oh, Van Dine, wasn't Gracie Allen his most recent work? Is it in English?"

Sylvia shook her head and pushed the book towards him. Then, she said, "Correct, only some older works of Van Dine have French translations. I am quite surprised to learn that you know this story."

"I think I read the one about… the Bishop, maybe? I read it to practise my German, and did not really understand it as a result, but I remember the author."

Sylvia sighed after failing to find another soul with whom she could discuss this work. She leaned in her chair and indulged in the fragrance of coffee without minding those around her. Now their table was overfilled with awkward silence, nobody dared to drop a word. Soon enough, Jessie came along to interrupt these dreadful hush cups with two light clanks of coffee cups, but after the order was set, she went off yet again to serve more newly arrived customers.

After a while, Eugene was tired of this game of charades and turned to Cossette to say, "No, Douglas did not come over, call me, or send any letters. I have no idea where he is now."

Cossette did not say anything, Lawrence glanced at her in concern, but Sylvia only raised her brow, "Did something happen to this fool?"

"Hell if I know!" exclaimed Eugene, drank the last droplets of coffee from his cup and faced Cossette, "This is not the first time he disappeared so suddenly. He called you previously, but now you guys broke up. Thus, he likely just moved on."

"Eugene, you are being rude." noticed Lawrence, to which Eugene narrowed his brows, but was interrupted by Cossette, who finally said, "No, Eugene is in the right here. As Douglas… moved on from our relationship, so should I."

All this time her eyes were directed at the espresso cup, but then she suddenly turned to Eugene. Her eyes were filled with concern, which further irritated the man, who was tired from this game of gartic phone. But the worst part was that she also realised that.

After the Fire of Prometheus, Douglas and Cossette broke up, Eugene did not know the details and was not very interested in them in the first place. But near the end of October, Douglas suddenly left the town without a notice. It was a common occurrence for him that his friends were already used to, but Cossette was always on her toes about it and demanded regular calls to check his well-being. It was a sweet habit, however, now Eugene was annoyed at Cossette for still expecting something from Douglas's side. She was a fine girl, but certainly overprotective at times, and this instance showed the worst of this feature.

"You were wrong only about one thing, Eugene." said Cossette, which made Eugene raise his brow. Sylvia and Lawrence also prickled up their ears.

Cossette hesitated for a moment, but then continued, "Today, I received a call from him. He did not say anything, just sighed and hung up on me. But then the operator said that this call was made outside of France."