He's Out of Coffee

There's a photograph on the wall of a nude woman bent over so that the space between her arms and her breasts form the shape of a heart. Billie Holliday's voice permeates the place, as the few lonely travelers sit and enjoy the last of their coffees.

Outside people are trying to leave the city. They've put in their hours, now it's time to return to the suburbs and visit their families.

We are all travelers of some sort or another. Visitors, coming and going like flies, carried every which way by the currents of time.

“This is quite good,” says a man sitting near the window, “do you roast your own?”

He can't place the Holliday song, but it's a live cut. He remembers a dog he once saw not far from here and wonders where it might be now.

“Yes, I'm glad you like it,” says the woman behind the counter, scrubbing at things that need scrubbing. She will soon leave the city as well, though for now she seems happy enough to have a man sitting near the window complimenting her coffee.

It's the simple things, she thinks to herself.

He nods his head and searches for a clever response. Finding none he continues to savor his drink as the music plays on.

It's the simple things, he thinks to himself.

But is all of this really simple? The convergence of countless factors that conspired to bring these two individuals to this place at this time? It seems far more than mere coincidence.

Of course, that's the beauty of this illusion, why the trick works at all. How can any of us know what is coincidence and what is not? Where is the evidence for or against?

He's out of coffee. It's time to go.