Short Story

"Bad day, this day" remarked the young man with the newspaper under his arm, as he slowly surveyed the cakes and sandwiches under their glass covers
"Yes, I know. I spotted a limpet this morning. Actually just around the corner here," replied the man behind the counter.
"Yes, yes of course. Just coffee please," said the young man, now concentrating completely on a sign reading "caution: alcohol consumption during pregnancy may cause birth defects". Limpets can cause any number of things, thought the young man.

Of all days, he thought. He poured the cream carefully, not too much not too little. This coffee would not be good, it never was, but that is not the most important of all things. He must drink it while he reads the paper. He must read the paper as well, for how could a man like himself walk around in a dream like a poet or one who is in love? No, it is best to know what is going on, even if the news is always depressing and the writing shoddy or superficial.

Abruptly, the young man let the newspaper drop to the table, got up, and walked back over to the counter. "I've forgot," he began quietly, "is the refill included?"

"First one is free, after that fifty cents will do. There are people who would come here in the morning and take up space all day without buying anything else after that first cup. Not you of course," finished the shop owner with a wink entirely becoming to his friendly, bearded face and simple red plaid shirt.

"Hmmph." Santa Claus, thought the young man. Looks just like Santa Claus, but hair's not white. He was not an unfriendly person, this young man. Not in the least. The shop keeper seems to understand this, and continues his business completely nonplussed by the young man's response.

Picking up the newspaper again, he opened it to some page in the middle and began reading. "Abortion Issue Plagues Health Care Bill. Passions heat up as the Senate begins to discuss language limiting women's access to abortion in the proposed health care bill..." Yes, and senators beating each other with canes! exclaimed the young man excitably, but also with somber darkness. No one heard him, as he mostly thought and spoke within the privacy of his own mind. This issue, like many others to the young man, was frustrating to the point of hilarity, which is precisely what made reading the newspaper so difficult, even on a good day.

He set the paper down for the second time, somewhat hesitantly. It just wouldn't do to go on reading this paper today. Maybe tomorrow. There's always tomorrow, new news, new paper, new cup of coffee. New me? "Ha!" chuckled the young man, this time out loud but attracting no attention from the other cafe patrons. Compared to the bitter dark feeling evoked by the newspaper article, this laughter was simple and spontaneous. "Hmmm," thought the young man, "Me change? No, not really. I am me, aren't I? I'm can't become you, for example," he continued, glancing over to the back corner where another, slightly younger man sat engrossed in a book, reaching up to adjust his think black lenses from time to time, and tapping his converse clad left foot unceasingly. "Nor could I become you," this time looking in the opposite direction towards two people looking so deeply into each others' eyes they apparently could see nothing else. "Especially not you, for how could I be two people at once? That's ridiculous!" This thought continued to amuse him, and so he smiled and said it again quietly under his breath, "ridiculous."

Well, this has been a bad day. Broken hearts and all that. He directed his thoughts towards the scraggly plant growing beside his right arm on the window sill, but not because he thought the plant could hear him exactly. He was not insane, this young man. It was difficult to tell what kind of plant it was. Of course one could with an average knowledge of flowering plants, but this plant was not in flower, and what fun is it to recognize a petunia from a daisy or a rose when you just might be wrong and it's really a thistle? You never know with flowers. But of course no one plants thistles in flower pots, and they are quite recognizable without blossoms in any case.

"She.... hmm. She just doesn't love me," came the thought, haltingly, cautiously. The young man picked up his spoon and began dumping spoon fulls of lukewarm coffee onto his napkin. "She doesn't love me at all," the thought continued, this time with more conviction.
"I must go home," thought the man anxiously. "The coffee has become cold."

And with that, he pushed back his chair, put on his coat and scarf, and walked purposefully out the door. No one looked up as he left, but several minutes later the shopkeeper came by and picked up the half full glass and the forgotten newspaper. Returning to the counter, the man began to read, and continued until he had read the horiscope, the comics, and the weather, thinking only that perhaps tomorrow he would need to salt the sidewalk in front of the shop, "with all these damn false-alarm predictions for snow," he mused. But it would be bad for the limpet either way.