A Very Short Story

　After two weeks of sunshine, I was happy to find Paris covered with its usual heavy clouds of autumn. On a cold day like this, Parisians are walking swiftly looking for cozy cafés to get in. I would usually stop by at a window of one of these cafés and watch people sheltered from the cold. Looking these people escaping from the coldness outside and talking almost eternally of nothing of importance gives me a smile.
　But today I was in an old brasserie at Avenue La Motte Piquet with an Argentine girl talking almost eternally of her impossible love towards his boss, Jean-Pierre. The usually succulent Bourguignon ham tasted somewhat bland. I was forcing myself to have a smile on my face and trying to be positive whenever she wanted me to be. Annette, who will be 38 this year is a trainee at a law firm specialized in intellectual rights where I'm an associate, has a sort of negative Midas touch. Every word that comes out from her mouth is a bore. Even what I had thought interesting becomes boring once it comes from her mouth.
　I was just nodding to her and thinking of another thing when my chocolate soufflé came. I was recalling the nasty fight that I had last night with Jean-Pierre. While I was sitting on the edge of his bed and putting my clothes on, he started throwing me sarcastic remarks about my promotion and ended up crying that I didn't love him. Still feeling a sweet pain in my abdomen, I was looking at a man pleading me not to leave him. He had been always urging me to marry him and yesterday I suddenly got my post promoted to the chief office in The Hague. I explained to him that I could come back to Paris for the weekends but he did not listen to me. And he was right not to do so.
Annette was explaining to me now how sweet Jean-Pierre was and how brilliant he was. I ordered a cafe-crême, which always made garçons smile a trifle contemptuously, as if they wanted to say "Une pauvre américaine qui ne sait pas le vrai goût de café!" I looked outside the brasserie through the window, always pretending to listen to Annette. Outside the brasserie, it had started to rain and people were hurrying to get inside some buildings.
　A small girl with a red skirt came in front of the brasserie. She started playing with a pigeon on the pavement. A warm feeling towards this child was rising in me, and just when a smile was coming to my face, suddenly she kicked the pigeon high in the sky and walked away. At first I could not make of what happened but when I realized what the girl had done, a nausea rushed me and all of a sudden everything bothered me became clear. International intellectual rights did not interest me at all, but it paid my rent. Annette was a complete bore, but I envied her blind passion. And I did not love Jean-Pierre, but I needed him in bed.
　By now Annette realized something was wrong with me and asked,
　"Are you all right, Karen?"
I answered with a faint smile,
　"No, I think I've got a bad cold."
Annette with her saintly smile gave me an advice,
　"Karen, you need a man."