A sip of coffee, a bite of the pastry that the server recommended, and a turn of the page of whatever book he had been reading but had long lost interest in. At least the coffee shop that a friend suggested to him wasn’t bad. A place to spend a Saturday afternoon if he needed to get some work done.

The Adele track had faded to silence, and was replaced by some Rascal Flatts, which didn’t seem to match the atmosphere around him. So he shuffled through his reading playlist, adjusting the volume for the errant download that was always much louder or much softer than the others.

His music player started playing familiar notes of a lone guitar – typical Staind, and actually the last track of Staind’s last album. He remembered purchasing the entire album based on a thirty-second sample that sounded like it would make for good music to listen to on a long trip.

So when the day comes and the sun won’t catch my face
Tell the ones who cared enough that I’ve finally left this place

Then he recalled it was depressing enough that he spent much of the trip in silence after two or three similar songs. He was running a theory that, when making the playlist, he had mistaken the track title for that of a brighter James Taylor song, and was going to skip ahead, until that man entered his field of vision.

He walked with a limp, half of his body hunched over the cane that supported him. Late 70s, early 80s, he thought. A man with no family or—

—and this was all speculation going through his mind, because he didn’t know where it was coming from—

The road is long, just one more song
A little something to remind you when I’m gone

—friends to speak of. A server followed behind with his coffee and food on a tray in hand. The old man muttered something with each pained step. If he paid real close attention, he could read his lips. Or at least take a guess.

“Waiting to die, waiting to die, waiting to die”

“—?”

He caught the end of his server’s question when he snapped out of singular focus on the elderly man in front of him. He took off his earphones.

“Some more coffee?”

Technically, she didn’t sneak up on him so much as he was lost in a haze, so he half-apologized and gestured to his nearly empty cup for what would be the third refill today. It was when the server walked away and he turned his attention back to the elderly man now seated that he saw that he was laughing with the server that had set his food down on the table. The old man had a bright expression on his face that he hadn’t caught with his earphones on. How peculiar.

He put his music back in his ears and skipped ahead some more. Passenger. This was more like it. This was a conscious addition to his playlist.

You see her when you close your eyes
Maybe one day you’ll understand why
Everything you touch surely dies

Well, it was slightly more upbeat than the lyrics suggested. Still, it was a change of pace from the death march from a moment a—

The sound of a dish falling to the floor overcame the music for a brief moment, and he turned to his side to see what had happened. A toddler had dropped her dish to the floor, much to her delight thanks to the noise it produced. Another server rushed over to pick it up, saving the mother from leaving her seat to clean up after her child. The mother laughed, nodding in gratitude, but it all seemed a façade. She smiled weakly at her daughter, then returned to the papers on the table in front of her.

He drank a little bit of his own coffee, not wanting to garner too much attention to himself. He didn’t want to seem too nosy. But the piece of paper she was holding—

In what looked like a photograph because of its size, he could see, or imply, the outline of a face and upper body as the sunlight through the window provided the tiniest bit of detail and definition on the reverse side of the paper. A man, perhaps. Her husband, maybe. Someone who was obviously absent from the table. Her chin rested on her hand as her eyes wandered across what he thought was a photograph.

Only know you’ve been high when you’re feeling low
Only hate the road when you’re missing home
Only know you love her when you let her go

Her eyes turned more wistful, thinking about the man who left her, or maybe she left him, but either way, it was all an epilogue to a romance that was cruelly broken and that left her alone with a beautiful child that maybe was unexpected. Her gaze shifted back and forth between the photograph and the bills she had laid out on the table next to the light meal that was all she could afford for her and her daughter. What tomorrow brought for her was as uncertain as—

“Sorry!”

A man walked up to her table, which made her react with joy. He pointed at his watch, then made a gesture that looked like a phone, and mouthed some words of apology. It didn’t matter, because she was happy to see him.

He muted the music, if only to try and hear something about it. He was far enough away that he couldn’t make out any words, but it hardly matched what he was thinking a moment before. No matter.

He had another forkful of his dish. It had become cold a while ago. He considered ordering something else, but figured he should go back to his reading. So he skipped ahead some more in his playlist. Akon, Skylar Grey, Billy Joel…Ben Folds.

Good morning, son, I am a bird wearing a brown polyester shirt
You want a coke? Maybe some fries? The roast beef combo’s only $9.95
It’s okay, you don’t have to pay, I’ve got all the change

A laughing child in the opposite direction caught his attention this time. His father had just laid out a tray in front of him, complete with a scoop of ice cream drizzled with chocolate syrup. The child, maybe five or six, was ecstatic, and where most parents in public would tell their children to settle down, the father let him enjoy for a moment.

He tilted his head at the family sitting across the coffee shop from him. How nice.

In twenty years from now, maybe we’ll both sit down and have a few beers
And I can tell you about today, and how I picked you up and everything changed
It was pain, sunny days and rain, I knew you’d feel the same things

All the father could do was smile. It faded a little bit, and actually turned into a daydream, where he imagined his son, all grown up. Not like this, never like this ever again. He’d be off on some adventure, maybe a career and hopefully a family, decades wiser and far less innocent than he was now. Maybe he’d be grateful to his father for all the things he gave him, or resentful for all the things in the world he couldn’t protect him from. It was only inevitable that this would end. Was that why he sprung for the ice cream now, today? Enjoy it now? Because life only gets more difficult from here? Is that all he could show his son—

Another laugh, and a spoonful of ice cream. The boy fed it to his father, who happily accepted it. His smile returned. It was always bound to come back.

Back at his table, the music ended, alerting him to stop staring, stop daydreaming. It was getting late anyways. Time to pack up and head off to do other errands.