Dark Roast

For Belle's Challenge (Entry No. 2):

Who the hell let him in here?

I was not planning on having my breakfast interrupted by anyone I knew, much less him. But, here I was, right after my run – fourth for the week (okay, third) – sitting in a local café and seeing his face on the same set of seats I would use to finish up a large black coffee before heading home. It was not busy for a Sunday morning – the best time for a run – and I was happy to feel the caffeine and heat flowing through my chilled body. I also had a sandwich to go, but I would have finished it before I got home. That was the plan.

“Excuse me.”

I knew it was him. I could not imagine any of the few people there would have tried to start talking to me as I finished my drink. I blew on the gap in the lid – kind of useless – and saw that he was trying to get my attention.

“Yeah, kid?”

“You know me?”

“I gotta choice?”

He smiled and I smiled. I wondered when this was going to happen, and I guess that it was my turn.

“What you having?”

“Just a cappuccino.”

Now I knew why I hated him.

“Still putting milk in coffee… That’s gonna change one day. Believe me.”

His grimace was funny enough to laugh at, but I didn’t.

“Really? You drink this stuff without milk?”

“Or cream. No sugar, either. It’s just too much.”

At least he laughed. Gave me an excuse to join in. One old man at a table looked over at us, but I ignored him. He’d get his turn one day if he was a good boy, I thought. Let him wait. I just wanted to know more about why he was here.

“So, what do you want to know?” I was wiping my face down with the towel from around my neck and tried not to be too worried about whatever question was coming my way.

“We are still running?”

“Oh, you bet!” I was actually happy that he started there. It had been a good run, and I felt like I could just stretch and not feel the pain from that last surge uphill. “No gym membership, but I do yoga, running, push-ups, sit-ups, planks…”

“Planks?”

Yeah, I guess that wasn’t a thing when I was that age. “It’s like for your chest. You just hold a position for a while and it’s supposed to be good for your core.” Not the best explanation possible, but…I really could not do a set in a café.

At least he listened.

“Listen, I just…I guess you want me to give you some advice while you got my ear, right?”

I could actually see the kid’s face light up under the fluorescents. The old man must have sensed something as well because he looked over and above his sugary tea (so many packets ripped up there).

“Yes! Yes, that would really help!”

Help… That’s what he thought I could give him. Help.

I looked him over.

“Don’t come back.”

“What?”

He thought I was telling him to get out of the TH and tried to back off.

“I don’t mean this coffee shop. I mean this country.”

He was very confused now.

“Okay, if I offended you…”

“Sorry. You haven’t thought about it yet, so let me explain. You are going to head off to university and it will be a lot of fun. You will meet at least one young lady who will friend-zone you – that’s the word, right – but nothing will happen here. Then, you will have to figure out what to do with a degree in literature once you’ve graduated and are out there in the big bad world. There will be a humanities fair that you will help organize – congratulations on that, you social coordinator. You will meet all sorts of recruiters and organization reps, but the one that will stand out to you the most will be a school hiring teachers to work overseas. You will tell your family about this, and their initial reaction will be to laugh at you…until you add a foreign language course to your schedule – pretty brave of you to do this – and find yourself with a new passport and a visa. For the first time since your father’s funeral, you mother will shed tears as you wait for your flight at the airport, but you will not feel sad about leaving. You will be overjoyed. And you should be. You are about to have the best time of your life. And then you will decide that it is over and you should come back to this country.”

He didn’t even move a muscle during that whole speech. I wondered if he even knew how to breathe.

“Don’t do it.”

His face contorted a bit, all wide-eyed and confused.

“I shouldn’t…”

“Come back. Stay out there. Don’t be tempted to restart a life here no matter what happens. There will be a lot of temptations out there, but there will be even greater ones here. And that will wreck you.”

I felt like I should have handed over my dark roast to him before he collapsed on his stool.

“You want me not to come back to my family?”

“I want you to think about not coming back to this country. You can always visit and see the folks, go to weddings, see your family grow and expand, but don’t think that your work and life situation will be better here after a few years out there.”

I finished the rest of the cold coffee.

“It won’t.”

Now, I was staring out the window as I spoke, but I could see a little of what was happening next to me with the window reflecting the inside of the place. The kid was beginning to fade out and disappear, giving the old man a near-heart attack. The staff yelled at him to relax and did not notice that I was now on my own.

And I wondered if I had something more to say. I wondered if he even heard me.

*

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