I go into a cool café, sit down, look around.  Young couple chatting to my right. Over the way a woman deep in her laptop.  Wedged into a corner table - another couple: she like Beth Ditto and he a young James Baldwin.  My snap judgment is that they don’t know one another very well.  Her laugh is staccato and his tone very low.  I can just make out her American accent but only an odd word or two floats over. The waitress takes my order, I switch to another bandwidth and pay them no more attention.  A while later, I don’t know how long, I become vaguely aware of a silence around them.  I hear no farewell noises but he gets up and, passing my table, turns back to her and hisses:  “ I hope you die in a head-on”.  Then walks out.  It takes me a second or two to grasp the words, then I glance at her.  She has picked up a book and is staring at its pages but I can see that her eyes are reddening. 

neverending

speakers stream

cool jazz

*A haibun is a traditional Japanese form which combines prose with haiku.