“Want ads” – more like need ads, Josiah thought. Need a job, need a worker, need a couch, need a woman. Not luxuries, necessities – the stuff of lives lived quietly and painfully close to the bone. He read the job listings more from habit than hope.
He looked out the coffeehouse window. People walked down the street with their chins down and their hands crammed in well-insulated pockets. A coat was a bubble for warm air. Insulation against the cold of a bubble on a rock circling through an endless void. Bubbles in bubbles.
The faded green of his old Army coat sickened on the umber tabletop. He held the paper cup – coffee in paper, paper under wax, corrugated cardboard over wax – in his hands. The heat felt good. The creamed and sweetened coffee warmed him deep inside.
Josiah wondered about the person who’d left the paper like that: half-open. Didn’t they want – didn’t they need anything? He could see her in her tailored skirt and jacket, careful not to get scone crumbs on her fine silk blouse. Maybe she found what she needed, and left the rest for someone like him.
Or maybe she looked more from habit than hope, too.
