Falling - Part 3
- TwoJays MyEye
- Feb 21
- 8 min read
Updated: Apr 5
In Melbourne, after being on one of the raunchy dating websites, Lester sat in the restaurant by himself waiting for the woman he’d invited to come and eat with him. He didn’t think she would show up, he didn’t want her to show up.
There was a small restaurant in Melbourne, the kind you only found by accident, tucked between old brick facades and the quiet hum of the city at dusk. A man and a woman sat at a corner table, their wine glasses half-full, their menus resting between them like an unspoken truce. They had been here before, years ago, when the glow of the pendant lights felt warmer, when their hands would brush across the table without hesitation. Now, the silence carried weight—not of absence, but of history. In the open kitchen, chefs moved in a quiet ballet of heat and steel, the scent of garlic and rosemary curling through the air. Outside, trams rattled by, the neon haze of the city spilling onto the pavement. The night would end, as all nights do, but for now, there was still time. Time for a word, a glance, the smallest gesture. Perhaps it would be enough. Perhaps it wouldn’t. But the restaurant would still be there, a witness to their past and a question to their future.
Lester's having a drink having a nice time by himself reading and talking into his phone, this is how he became A Writer. Lester invited women from dating websites, hoping they would not show up, so he could finish.
Some things are better experienced than explained—like good conversation over dinner with just the right amount of mystery and imagination - You, make it happen, do it for you. It will be moments of clarity for both of us. I’m not kidding, I made a booking. Tick, Tock - 7pm, my darling.
He was there before Midnight, in the Garden of Good and Evil. He knew she wasn’t coming, she was known as kindkinkkate, and he got dressed up like he was going on a date - a shower and nice shirt he did everything he was supposed to mostly for himself but also, you know, just in case, if she showed up he’d be ready. The restaurant was nostalgia, immortality and lightness, and being.
The restaurant hums with a quiet, unspoken drama, a choreography of laughter, flickering bulbs, and the metallic hiss of the kitchen. The air is thick with a certain kind of weightlessness—the illusion that this moment, this dinner, these conversations, will stretch indefinitely, as if time had paused its steady erosion for the sake of camaraderie.
A woman leans in, her chin resting on her palm, her gaze drifting between the menu and the half-empty glass before her. She is here, yet elsewhere. The couple across from her—middle-aged, comfortably attuned to each other’s presence—exchange a joke that dissolves into laughter, not the boisterous kind, but the kind that carries years of unspoken understanding. A man in a white shirt gestures mid-sentence, his hands carving the air as if shaping the perfect retelling of a story.
The kitchen is a quiet revolution. Steam rises, knives dance, chefs move with the urgency of soldiers in a war against time. The scent of something sizzling, something rich and indulgent, fills the space. The bar shelves, stacked with liquor bottles, gleam like relics of forgotten nights.
Beyond the glass façade, the city exists in its own parallel moment. A cyclist passes. A conversation is had. A life unfolds. The people inside, momentarily cocooned in the golden light, believe in the permanence of this warmth. But the truth, heavy yet beautiful, is that everything here—the chatter, the flickering bulbs, the hum of the kitchen—will dissolve into memory, the way all evenings eventually do.
Ruby sat at the tiny cafe in Milan, idly stirring her espresso, watching the pigeons fight over crumbs as if they were fighting for meaning.
There was a small café in Milan, tucked away on a quiet street where the afternoon light slanted through the windows just so, turning everything gold. A man and a woman sat at a corner table, their coffee cups untouched, their fingers tracing the edges of the saucers. They had met here once, long ago, when the city felt lighter, when their laughter rose easily between sips of espresso. Now, the silence between them was not empty but full—of things unsaid, of memories that lingered like the scent of roasted coffee in the air. Outside, the world moved on: a cyclist weaving through traffic, a waiter lighting a cigarette, the cathedral bells marking another lost hour. And yet, inside, for the briefest moment, they existed outside of time. A word, a glance, the smallest gesture—perhaps it was enough. Perhaps it wasn’t. But the café, indifferent and eternal, would be there again tomorrow, waiting for them to decide.
She had been fighting for meaning too, but unlike the pigeons, who always seemed to find sustenance in the smallest of things, she was left hungry.
I am not avoiding having the hard conversation at all. You just do not want to admit that I have had enough and I walked away. I will be coming back with or without your assistance so don’t bother. My girls are confused by you and what you tell me and then what they are told. I will repair my relationship with them.
Fighting for me is about winning me back not acting out like a child, but you never really understood that did you. What nefarious activity do you think is going on?
The cafe was immortal, nostalgic, and bright, just being, light.
The café breathes with the soft murmur of conversations, the clinking of espresso cups, the distant hum of a Vespa beyond the glass. Golden light spills onto the worn wooden tables, casting elongated shadows of wine glasses and half-folded menus. Here, in this corner of Milan, time does not stop, but it lingers—like the last sip of a macchiato before an afternoon of untold stories.
A woman in a black dress, her wrist adorned with a delicate gold bracelet, stirs her coffee absentmindedly. Her gaze flits between the man across from her and the movement outside—the world that continues, indifferent to this moment. He, in a crisp linen shirt, speaks with the kind of confidence only Italians possess, his hands carving the air between sentences.
Further inside, laughter blooms. A trio at a small table shares an inside joke, their shoulders brushing as they lean in, their words dissolving into the din of the café. A waiter glides between tables with effortless grace, a tray balanced, an espresso set down without a word. Behind the bar, the bartender wipes down a glass, pausing only to exchange a knowing glance with a regular—an unspoken understanding of routine, of lives that orbit the same places.
Beyond the wide windows, the city unfolds. The cobblestones glisten under the afternoon light, a cyclist weaves through slow-moving traffic, a man in a navy suit checks his watch. The cathedral bells will toll soon, marking another hour lost, another evening approaching.
Inside, the café holds them all—momentarily suspended between past and future. They believe, for now, in the eternity of this hour, the warmth of coffee, the richness of conversation. But outside, time marches on, carrying the city forward while the café remains, waiting for the next set of lives to step inside and forget, if only briefly, that everything must end.
—
Lester, moved through the empty house with quiet determination. It was no longer a mausoleum but a battleground, and he had chosen not to surrender. He had undergone surgery, endured abandonment, but he was still standing. Still thinking. Still fighting. He would not wallow in self-pity—he was too stubborn for that.
Ruby had left, and the only thing heavier than her absence was the weight of knowing she might never truly return. Oh, she’d be back to collect her things, to smooth out logistics, to conclude the bureaucratic entanglements of their life together, but Lester was no longer waiting with open wounds. She had made her choice. And so had he.
She had once said, ‘Borrowed things always have to be returned.’ Unless they aren’t.
He had not borrowed her. He had claimed her. And if she wanted to leave, that was her burden to carry.
Ruby had always been the kind of woman people borrowed. She was passed from arms to arms, a living artifact that made men feel more intelligent, more alive, more themselves. And she had let them.
She had let them because it was easier than confronting the truth: that she did not know how to exist outside of being needed.
Lester had been the last borrower, the one who had believed he had the right to keep her. He had loved her, loved her with a ferocity that was almost grotesque, like a child clutching too tightly to a butterfly, suffocating it in his palm.
But now, back in the future, sitting alone in Milan, she wondered if she had ever truly been loved, Lester knew she had, he was the one who loved her. She was the one who said, how can anyone like you love me? She also often had simply been a reflection of what others needed her to be. So here we are:
Lester had undergone surgery.
Ruby had undergone silence.
Both had emerged from their procedures changed.
She read his messages on her phone, the words sliding past her like water over stone. He wanted honesty. He wanted understanding. He wanted answers.
But, Lester no longer really needed answers. He had become something stronger in the wake of his pain—someone who would not be defined by loss.
Ruby was a coward—she admitted that now; she said it not Lester, he wouldn't. She had always run from things she had created, unable to extricate herself from the chaos except through abandonment. She was her cowardly family.
Lester's messages no longer oscillated between fury and devotion. They were measured now, calculated. He was no longer the man begging for her return—he was the man who had decided that whether she came back or not, he would be ok and thrive.
She had written him a Valentine’s Day message, a final attempt at exorcising the ghosts of their relationship. It was not the kind of love letter one wants to receive on a day of roses and chocolate; it was a funeral procession in prose:
She had told him she did not love him anymore.
She had told him she had not loved him for years.
She had told him she wanted to be worshipped.
And Lester, poor Lester, had smiled when he read it. Not a smile of sadness. Not even of relief. But of understanding. He had loved her. He had fought for her. But he was not broken by her departure.
Falling. Ruby had been falling for years, but she had mistaken it for flight. Now, she was bracing for impact.
She thought of their last kiss. The way he had held her like he was imprinting her into his very skin, desperate to make her a permanent part of him. She had let him, knowing even then that she would leave.
She wondered if he still felt her, like a phantom limb, aching in the absence of what should have been there. He did.
And Lester—
Lester, sitting in the dim light of his house, rereading her words for the last time, exhaled deeply and placed the phone down.
He did not need to read them again.
The challenge of loving her had been thrilling. The challenge of letting her go was even more so.
He smiled.
He hadn’t won, but he was already thinking about how to win her back one day. It would be a savoury experience that would last and one that they would both enjoy. Fingers crossed.
Falling. You never know how far.
Eventually, it feels like flying.
And then, you hit the ground.
And the, you’re strong enough, and you get up.
Ruby will be bright and shiny, magnificent as she always has been, particularly when Lester wills it to be. And he will there’s nothing he wants more.
Men of will, Very powerful. Strange.
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