Immersion

he walked into the café and out of the rain. his long raincoat was stained from the drab weather outside and as the grey clouds swarmed up above, he lowered his briefcase from over his head to reveal helplessly wet hair. at the counter he ordered a cup of tea with no milk and one sugar. after paying the aged grandma behind the counter he turned to face the café and made a quickfire choice as to where to sit. he chose the red-leather booth towards the back right corner of the place. the whole room was pretty empty. over on the other side was an older gentleman who was reading some paper that was telling some story about some war. but over on the row of tables just to the right of his booth was another person, a woman, who was sitting alone just staring into space. she had no bag to speak of, in fact, all she had was her cup of what might have been tea, or coffee, or anything. whatever it was, she pulled a small silver bottle from her coat pocket, uncapped it and poured a little into the cup. she eyed the man watching her do this and smiled a childlike mischiefous smile.
she pulled herself out of her space and flew over to the man's booth. she sat oposite him and stared at his bemused face. he was confused to say the least, as he was not the most socially able of people.
'so what's your name?' said the cheshire cat lady
'Alexander'
'well Alexander, my name's Bethany, but you can call me Grace'
'why Grace?'
'i like it better. so - Alex, you like your tea there?'
'it's Alexander, and yeh it's ok'
'ok Alexander - would you like some of mine?'
'no thankyou'
'it's very good'
'i, no - it's ok. i'm fine, really'
'do you like music Alexander?'
'sure, who doesnt?'
'and do you know what a mix tape is?'
'yeh'
'well when i meet someone new i like to give them a tape so they know me. a mix tape is basically a letter from one person to the other, so i feel that it clears things up. and then sometimes i use the tapes to transmit messages or themes. once i made this tape for someone to tell them how much a liked them. how much i had grown to almost love them. and it seems so fake and futile now, but that was the way i wanted to tell that person how i felt. and that person either didn't feel the same or didn't get it. and you know what?'
the bemused man looked at this complete stranger, with an open mouth and a blinkless stare: ' no - what?'
'i never once received a mix tape from anyone. do you see what im trying to say Alexander?'
and with that everything was gone. the café, the drinks, the woman, the old man, the smell, the touch, the sight and the sound. all was blank and all was black as Alexander descended even further into his madness...