Friday Flash Fiction 27

COFFEE HOUSE
By Gareth L Powell

"U2 are really starting to annoy me," she said. They were in a coffee house in Amsterdam's city centre, just off one of the main squares, finishing a joint at a window table.

'What?' he said. He'd misheard her. She was listening to Sunday Bloody Sunday on the jukebox. He thought he'd done something to piss her off.

She gave him a blank look.

'What?'

'I thought you said...'

They stared into each other's eyes, confused. Then she started to laugh. It bubbled out of her and she slapped his knee.

'Idiot!'

The music got louder. It was past midnight and the coffee house was closing. Her hair shone like strands of chrome. Across the street, tattooed Charlie Boys hovered in the pale blue light of a kebab shop door.