Sketch of a coffee shop.

“Isn’t this an ideal place to do my on-line banking?” I muse. Sure, thanks to my degenerative eyesight, the size of my font allows any curious coffee connaisseur to ballpark my credit score from a across the room, but it doesn’t matter. Nothing matters in this mocca-infused haze. 

The gentleman next to me smells like industrial gauge rope. I want to tell him, but it’s not really my place. (People have been thinking that for years, I’m sure.) His musty-basement musk has melted with bargain-basement perfumes and croissants into a dense jungle of poor olfactory choices. Everyone just accepts it. 

I know the inner-workings of every company in the area. This one guy just got fired - he’s moving to Utah. His plan: blow through his savings. Across the way, there is a table that is evidentially perfectly situated for elder-businessmen to dole out sage advice to youngsters. It’s not so much advice as it is a lament of the present circumstances. Good luck getting a job when your foothold is the refrain, “Things aren’t like they used to be.” It might as well be the wall paper here. 

Eating has been reduced to a mechanical impulse. Not one is savoring anything here; it’s a feeding-station designed to distract from the mundane qualities of Wednesdays. Sandwich in, sandwich out. Never mind it cost $9, it’s $9 of escape - or numbness. 

Everyone is reading this. But no one cares about it. That’s the truth.