THE ONCE CAFE

“The Once Café”

By Sheb Schebella

 The crunch of ice beneath my feet, a blast of wind in my face as I turn up Main Street to make my way to the café and all the while I can’t help think what became of my youth and then I remember, I got older, but thank god not old. A frozen smile is chiseled and finds its way beneath my happy eyes as I trudge on thinking I am going to treat myself to a pastry as well today. I look down at my trusted hound that carries his own leash in his mouth and remind him that he too will be getting his usual jelly doughnut and he perks up. As harsh as the weather is it is still a very fine day to be in love and to know the other one is mad for me. There’s a brilliant sense of security in the knowing that when the sun goes down that a blanket of kindness shall shelter you through the night. It is spring today but one would never know by the weather, only by name is it present for this time of year. I sit alone inside the café and watch people punch away at their Blackberries with vein protruding foreheads, I have never owned a blackberry and I don’t think I ever will; I never allowed my world to become that complex, that fast, that in personable. The romance of it all eludes me much like a wild pitch from a spoiled child. I fold over my newspaper and pullout my pencil to attempt the New York crossword puzzle and a young lady from a neighboring table with a pleasant smile informs me that there is an ad for that and it’s free, perhaps I think but the 400 dollar phone and the two year contract is not. I nod and smile with a thank you and leave it at that. Society has become so fast passed that there are games now I see where people can grow electronically simulated gardens, cringe goes I at the very thought of such a preposterous oddity. It seems the definition of passion has changed and is only kept alive by a small lithium battery at best by most it seems to me. The old café where once people shared greetings, conversations on small town politics and the weather has become an isolation tank for the patrons and is about as personable as an airport bar in Bangkok. My hound gives a hardy bark through the front window of the café letting me know he is ready to make haste and I don’t blame him. I purchase three doughnut holes for him to fetch on the stroll home before leaving. My hound Japhy heels next to me as we round our mark once again down main street, heading back to warmth back to our reality where the world is a kinder place and there are more than enough hours in a day to find time to say “I love you.”