Letters

Jake glanced at the clock then back to where Mr. Weaver sat at his usual window table, lips silently mouthing words, pen frantically scratching and scribbling across the newspaper, hand forcing its way through his hair. Just one more minute, Jake thought.

Mr. Weaver noted the time on his watch, set dropped his pen on the newspaper and quietly stood. He brushed a few remnants of his morning danish from his shirt as he walked and nodded a quick, smiling hello to Jake then disappeared down the restroom hallway.

When the door clicked shut, Jake made his move. He grabbed the pot of decaf and hurried to Mr. Weaver’s table. He scanned the left side of the page, filled with words that had been scratched out and re-written, trying the letters in different combinations but never seeming to find the right one. On the other side of the page, the crossword puzzle was well under way. But to Jake’s eyes, Mr. Weaver seemed to have become stuck on one of the Across clues. He skimmed the clue, counted the number of squares and quickly rifled through the useless trivia tucked away in his brain.

And there it was: the answer Mr. Weaver needed to move along with the puzzle. Jake checked the hallway to make sure he was in the clear, then grabbed the pen. He quickly filled in the squares to one of the down clues. Just a letter there, and Mr. Weaver should be able to figure this one out, thought Jake with a knowing smile.

He heard the door click open and dropped the pen. He picked up the coffee cup and some decaf into it.

“Thank you for the refresher,” Mr. Weaver said as he waited for Jake to finish pouring before sitting down.

“Anytime, Mr. Weaver.”

Jake stopped by other the tables on his way back to the counter, re-filling cups as he went.

a work of fiction, ©G.A. Carter, 2010

This was my entry for a contest on NPR. It didn't win, but I wanted to post it here, now that the contest is over.