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Rain slid down the café window in thin silver lines.

Inside, the lights were low and patient. Bottles stood behind the bar like quiet sentries. A cup of coffee cooled beside an untouched plate, the room carrying the faint smell of roasted beans, wet coats, and something fried hours ago.

Klaire stood near the glass holding the long wooden board used for slicing bread and meat. The worn wood rested against her hip like it belonged there. Thin knife lines crossed its surface, years of quiet work pressed deep into the grain.

Outside, the streetlights flickered.

The intermittent buzz from their tired wiring drifted through the rain. Moths circled the glowing globe of the nearest lamp, occasionally striking it as if they simply didn’t care what happened next.

Someone’s dogs barked in the distance.

Homes went dark one by one. Somewhere out there people were settling into beds, finishing conversations, turning off televisions.

I suppose it is like that somewhere in some town in the world.

It just doesn’t describe mine.

“The city never sleeps.”

Klaire had heard that phrase all her life. She never knew who said it first, but she knew it was true.

More happens in the night than anyone ever admits.

Young love blooming in the back seat of a borrowed car.
A waitress stepping outside for a cigarette, three pats and a wink away from paying her light bill.
A delivery truck driver staring at a flickering candle stuck into a blueberry muffin while wondering how forty-five years managed to pass him by.

Klaire had seen them all.

Not by name.

By posture.

You learn things when you work nights.

You learn who counts coins before ordering.

You learn who sits too long over a single cup of coffee.

You learn the shape loneliness makes in a person’s shoulders before they ever say a word.

Klaire had seen a woman cry quietly over a plate of eggs once, the tears slipping into the yolk before the fork ever touched it.

A man in a pressed suit once sat where the window light fell hardest, staring into his coffee like it owed him answers his expensive apartment never gave him.

And there was the father who came in every Thursday night, always ten days late on the rent, pretending the slice of pie was for someone waiting at home.

The night carried all of them.

Smoke-filled bars. Back alleys. Neon signs humming over people searching for relief from something they couldn’t quite name.

But pain is patient.

It waits.

And the night always knows where to find it.

Klaire shifted the board in her hands. Tonight it felt heavier than usual, as if the wood had absorbed the quiet mass of every story that had passed across the counter.

Her reflection watched her through the rain.

The glass turned her into two women.

One standing inside.

One trapped in the weather.

For a moment Klaire wondered which one was real.

Maybe the one in the glass was the version who had left this city years ago. The one who found a mate, moved somewhere warm, and forgot what neon light looked like through falling rain.

But life rarely follows the road we draw for it.

Klaire wiped the inside of the glass with her sleeve, though it made no difference. The rain outside didn’t care what she could see.

Somewhere down the street a siren wailed and faded into the dark.

Inside, the clock ticked.

Klaire stood there quietly, still holding the board meant for bread and meat, while the quiet mass of the city pressed against the glass.

Her reflection watched her through the rain.

Klaire didn’t wave.

After a moment, neither woman moved.

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Thanks Di