Kuunari

“And you are colder
Than oldness could ever be”

-Cap’n Jazz

The man let some coins slowly fall from his hand onto the table, watching each clink, clink, clink on the metal table. The midmorning sun shined through the floor to ceiling windows behind him. It caught the gray in his hair and deepened the wrinkles on his hand as it hung in the air as he pondered how many more he could let drop on the table.

His face was shrouded in shadow, the auto parts truckers hat pulled low on his forehead.

Who knew he was here? Did he tell his daughter who had moved to the big city right after graduation and rarely came home for even the holidays these days? Did he let her know who he saw each day at the coffee shop? Would he mention me?

I was just passing through the town, having slept in my car in the parking lot of a Walmart just outside of town. Most of the downtown of this riverside community was boarded up with only sandwich shops and antique stores every third storefront or so. The sole exception was this donut shop, supposedly owned by Aunt Ruth, whose name was missing a couple of letters on the marquee above the door. Much of the business in this community has migrated to the state highway a couple of miles away.

This old man was clearly a regular here, as his subtle nods and tips of the hat to the calls of the other patrons gave away when he entered. Still, he didn’t sit down and join them, instead sitting in the other high table by the window, looking out on the slow weekday morning traffic down Main Street.

He ordered only a single cake donut, no topping and a coffee, black. I had watched him sip it slowly, not to savor the burnt drink served in this establishment, but rather to make it last, to make time pass by quicker.

When the last coin made it’s slow tumble from his hand to the table surface, he nodded one last time to others who were still nursing their coffees, and with a mumbled thanks walked slowly to the door.

Is it better to live your life free, on the run from connections, or spend the last days of your life dealing with the fact that everyone who you ever loved will leave you?

I finished my lukewarm coffee in one gulp and followed the man out into the cold November wind.