Picking up his cup of coffee, drips of overflow fall to the table. He sits staring into his black Moleskine. Moving the cup over a page, he imprints the silhouette of his mug onto the page. There was nothing else there, so there might as well be a coffee stain. The café is walled with mirrors. He picks up his cigarette and rubs ash into the page for good measure. Now, if not for an absence of words, he could be writing. To the people watching him from across the room, he is clearly writing. His hair looks disheveled, his pants are worn and he’s scribbling something into that notebook.
Perhaps that’s me watching in the corner.
He listens to the flap of espresso grounds funneled into portafilters, the soft ting that always accompanies a good tamping. Water steams, eschewing out first the bitter, then the crème. A wand screeches milk of various fat contents into volume and fluff, but the best sound comes from the fattest of milks. A deep, thoughtful gurgling full of substance and flavor. He can smell the flavor. Milk just before it’s burnt.
He puts his headphones in, takes them out several times over. When he takes them out it is with purpose. Like maybe he heard someone call his name through a song in his ear-buds. He looks around, scrunches his face as if an idea were being worked through the wrinkles. He sniffs the air and smiles to himself. Is that lavender he smells? Perhaps it’s just jasmine.
He stomps his foot along to the tamping of espresso trying to get rid of an itch without taking off his shoe. But for a doodle of a cube with a stick figure in the center, the page is empty. Not even he knows what this means. He just needed some ink on the page to go along with the ink mark on his fingers. He looks at the clock above the door. He looks again. How long before he is allowed to leave? How long before he considers his work done? His leg twitches to the rhythm of seconds bouncing off rain.
He steps outside, looks back at the café. The smell of maples bars released from the pounding of rain on dirt. A sweetness he’s unsure of.
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