The couple.

They're outside, smoking. They're in their own world, whispering daggers in the nook of the door. I walk by and step into the tap room to order a beer. 10 minutes go by and they walk back in. He looks like he wants to comfort her, a sad despondent look hovering behind his stiff-lipped seriousness.

They sit back down to beers I hadn't noticed. She sees the glass and reaches out as if to drink it, but only picks it up to set it back down a few steps further away from his. He doesn't notice. He's busy hand-rolling a cigarette. His movements are surgical--not a single quake of his hand. She is ambivalent, staring inwards and tapping her right foot to some unknown beat.

Without making eye contact, he passes the cigarette to her and begins to roll his own. She looks like she might vomit into her glass. I can't lie, I think it would be more comfortable for me if she did, if she did something human. I walked in on this. I've sat here staring and I've somehow made myself an accomplice of looking where I shouldn't, being curious where the place isn't mine, and unwillingly I've fallen upon this scene of encrypted feelings and I don't know where the story ends. I can't tell if she's pregnant. If she's dying. If a family member just died. Their relationship just died or if one of them adulterated whatever veil of perfection may have stood therein. It's moments like these I shame myself for taking pictures of people, and luckily I have no camera with me. But I have no business being a part of this sorrow, because regarding the business and pain of others, it is no business of mine.

Before he had the chance to finish rolling the last of the American Spirit into its paper, she stands and walks out the door. He hastily packs up the tobacco into his pocket and leaves the cigarette on the table. And just like that, out they went, back into the night, back to their lives. Forty five minutes later and the cigarette is still on the table. As I lay my money on the bar and step out onto Broadway, I glance left and then right.

They're gone. I'll never know.