The woman in the red coat arrived at the café at exactly 3:47 every Tuesday. She ordered a cortado, never looked at her phone, and left after twenty minutes. She always sat at the table by the window, even when better seats were available.
Marco had been watching her for six weeks. Not in a sinister way—he was a writer, and she had become a character. He'd filled three pages of his notebook with theories: grieving widow, reluctant art dealer, woman hiding from someone.
Today, she didn't come alone.
A man in a gray suit sat across from her. Marco couldn't hear their conversation, but he could read their bodies—her rigid shoulders, his pleading hands. The man slid an envelope across the table. She didn't touch it.
"Another cortado?" Sofia, the barista, appeared at Marco's elbow.
"Just the check," he said, not taking his eyes off the window table.
The woman stood. She left the envelope where it lay and walked out, her red coat disappearing into the crowd on Las Ramblas.
The man in the gray suit sat there for a moment, then picked up the envelope and left in the opposite direction.
Marco paid and hurried to the table by the window. He needed to see what they'd left behind, if anything—a napkin with writing, coffee grounds arranged in a pattern, something.
The table was clean except for two empty cups.
But the seat was still warm.
He sat down and pulled out his notebook. For the first time in six weeks, he understood nothing about her at all. She wasn't a character. She was a person who had chosen this café, this table, this moment to refuse something he would never know about.
He wrote: The woman in the red coat came every Tuesday, and I watched her like she was mine to decode. Today she reminded me that some stories don't belong to the observer.
Next Tuesday, she arrived at 3:47. Ordered her cortado. Sat by the window.
Marco sat at the bar and wrote about someone else.
#flashfiction #Barcelona #stories #humanconnection