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.

Continue reading New Playlist 2 →