When he told me he was leaving I felt like a vase which has just smashed. There were pieces of me all over the tidy, tan tiles. He kept talking, telling me why he was leaving, explaining it was for the best, I could do better, it was his fault and not mine. I had heard it before many times and yet somehow was still not immune; perhaps one did not become immune to such felony.
He left and I tried to get on with my life. I filled the kettle and put it on to boil, I took out my old red mug and filled it with coffee watching as each coffee granule slipped in to the bone china. That was what my life had been like, endless omissions of coffee granules, somehow never managing to make that cup of coffee.
Somehow when the kettle piped its finishing warning I pretended not to hear it. That's what Mike's leaving had been like, sudden and with an awful finality. I would rather just wallow in uncertainty than have things finished. I laughed at myself. Imagine getting all philosophical and sentimental about a mug of coffee. I must be getting old.
And yet it was a young woman who stared back at me from the mirror. A young woman full of promise and hope, a young woman with bright eyes and full lips just waiting to take on the world. I never loved Mike anyway. Besides there are more important things. More important than love, I insist to myself firmly. The lid goes back on the coffee just like closure on the whole Mike experience.
He doesn't haunt my dreams as I feared that night. Instead I am flying far across fields and woods, looking down on those below me. Suddenly I fall to the ground and it is only when I wake up that I realize I was shot by a hunter, brought down by the burden of not the bullet but the soul of the man who shot it. I realize later, with some degree of understanding, that Mike was the hunter holding me down and I am the bird that longs to fly. The next night my dream is similar to the previous nights, but without the hunter. I fly free until I meet another bird who flies with me in perfect harmony. I realize with some relief that there is a bird out there for me, there is another person, not necessarily a lover perhaps just a friend, but there is someone out there who is my soul mate. I think about being a broken vase again and realize that I have glued myself back together, what Mike has is merely a little part of my time in earth, a little understanding of my physical being. He has only, a little piece of me.
當他告訴我他要離開的時候，我感覺自己就像花瓶裂成了碎片，跌落在茶色瓷磚地板上。他一直在說話，解釋著為什么要離開，說什么這是最好的，我可以做得更好，都是他的錯，與我無關。雖然這些話我已經聽上好幾千遍了，可每次聽完都讓我很受傷，或許在這樣巨大的打擊面前沒有人能做到無動于衷。
他走了，我嘗試著繼續過自己的生活。我燒開水，拿出紅色杯子，看著咖啡粉末一點點地落入骨灰瓷的杯子里。這正是我自己的鮮活寫照，不斷地往下掉咖啡粉末，卻從來沒有真正地泡成一杯咖啡。
水開了，水壺發出警報聲，我假裝沒有聽見。邁克的離去也是一樣，突如其來，并且無可挽回。要知道，我寧愿忍受分與不分的煎熬，也不愿意以這樣的方式被宣判“死刑”。想著想著我就啞然失笑，自己竟然為一杯咖啡有如此多的人生感懷，我自己一定是老了。
可是鏡子里回瞪著我的那個女孩還是那么年輕啊！明目皓齒，充滿了前途與希望，光明的未來在向她招手。沒關系的，反正我也從來沒有愛過邁克。何況，生命中還有比愛更重要的東西在等待著我，我對自己堅持說。我將咖啡罐的蓋子蓋好，也將所有關于邁克的記憶塵封起來。
那天晚上，出乎意料的是，他并沒有入到我的夢中。在夢里，我飛過田野和森林，俯瞰著大地。突然間，我掉了下來……醒來后才發現原來自己被獵人打中了，但是令我墜落的不是他的子彈，而是他的靈魂。我后來才漸漸明白，原來邁克就是那個使我墜落的獵人，而我是那只渴望飛翔的小鳥。到了第二天晚上，我仍然做了類似的夢，但是獵人不見了，我一直在自由地飛翔，直到遇上另外一只小鳥和我比翼雙飛。我開始意識到，總有那么一只鳥，那么一個人在前面等我，這個人可能是我的愛人，可能只是朋友，但一定是知我懂我的人，這令我感覺如釋重負。我想起曾經覺得自己像花瓶一樣裂開了，才意識到原來自己已經把自己修理好了。邁克只是我生命過程中的小小過客，他僅僅了解我的表面，他僅僅是我生命中的小小一部分。