People I'm Next To

I'm next to this gentleman. He has a suit on, it's well fitted, showcasing a stocky, but not overweight form. His jacket is a grey herringbone, and his pants are charcoal that matches some of the detailing on the jacket. He has on a lavender shirt, and a pink and purple tie. The tie is undone. His hair has long since abandoned him, but he carries the baldness well. I'd place him anywhere between the late 50s and late 60s. Aside from being particularly fashionable, he would not have stood out to me, if it weren't for the rain. It's raining. It's one of those consistent sorts of downpours. I feel like it's pacing itself. This isn't a drizzle that might blow over, or a storm that will wear itself out in a burst, but a solid few hours’ worths of rain. This rain is here and isn't concerned with being anywhere else in a hurry. Our gentleman is loading things into his car from a store with the aid of a few underlings in raincoats. His helpers scurry ba...

I'm next to this guy. He is wearing a heathered maroon button down, and grey jeans. He has on these oxford shoes that have seen better days, and bright blue socks that peek out when he crosses his legs. He is sitting at a table in this coffee shop with an unwieldy looking laptop in front of him. While I have, on several occasions, tried to covertly glance at his screen, I can't quite figure out what he is doing. Aside from endangering us all. In some strange quirk of architecture the plug nearest Grey Jeans Guy is located some six feet up the wall. Rather than run his laptop plug directly up the wall, Grey Jeans Guy has, in some misguided attempt at politeness, plugged a power strip with a 3 foot cord into the plug, and then plugged in his own laptop. This results in a pendulum of electric danger lightly swaying above a strangely flammable business. I am hypnotized, not only by the back and forth motion of the strip, but also the tiny blue sparks that occasionally surge into ...

I'm next to this absolutely amazing guy. Our time near each other is short, too short. He is a little overweight and is wearing an baggy T-shirt with what I think is a Insane Clown Posse logo on it. His shirt is complimented, as ICP shirts often are, by gross and skimpy mustache. Based on his musical taste, and his facial hair I would put him around 16 or 17. He is enjoying a warm afternoon on his BMX bike, out for a ride with a 4 foot snake wrapped around his neck. In case I buried the lead too much here, let me rephrase: I JUST SAW A CHUBBY DUDE WITH A SHITTY MUSTACHE RIDE A BMX BIKE BY ME WITH A FUCKING SNAKE WRAPPED AROUND HIS NECK! I have little interest in herpetology so I can't identify the type of snake, except to say it was big, green, and currently not strangling this magical man child. Although I can only assume that it could have done so easily, especially wrapped so luxuriously around his ample throat meat. Mind you I'm not questioning this transcendent jug...

I'm next to these people. Nine people to be precise, all of us morning patrons in a modestly busy coffee house. It's an almost eerily regular morning. For ease of reading, I'll make a roster: a dude in flannel shirt ordering and chatting with a pair of baristas, two folks just sitting and sipping on a couch, an older gentleman doing the crossword, two hip looking folks on their laptops, and some manic pixie lady with spiked hair and tattoos reading fucking Atlas Shrugged in a comfy chair. Its kind of like this place is full of extras on a movie set pretending to be how people are supposed to be at a coffee shop, all just waiting for the protagonists of the film to pop in a stir things up with some drama. That said, I'm not complaining, the oddly trope-ish surroundings make for a weirdly familiar and cozy backdrop for my morning. Although after a little bit I realize there might be a driving narrative here that I missed, a few of them in fact. To put is shortly, ever...

I'm next to this guy. He isn't really remarkable, jeans, collared shirt, pullover sweater, brown eyes, brown hair, two eyes, two ears, five fingers, five toes, et cetera. I mean he is wearing shoes, so you know I really don't know about the toes, regardless of the point remains, normal guy. He is at a coffee shop shopping on the for desks with his laptop. While I quietly infringe on his privacy by peering over his shoulder I see that he keeps coming back to a certain desk. It's a strange piece of motorized furniture that transforms from a traditional desk height to standing height with the push of a button. This future furniture is quickly driving me insane. It starts innocently enough, the desk poses a question: Why would anyone need an ascending descending desk? I assume it's a health issue, still curious I decide to google that shit. This is where things rapidly spiral away from me. Searching for this desk, I stumble across several articles on the dan...

I'm next to this woman. She is a thin, dark haired lady in jarringly bright, if pleasant clothes. I'd say jaunty, if I were the type of person to say jaunty. I guess I am. In a strange quirk, she is doing what I am doing, essentially describing some stranger in the bar. She and a gentlemen, her gentleman, are telling a story to another lady. The story is about their first date, more specifically a rude interruption on their first date. Some three years ago this couple picked up a third wheel during their date, a wonderfully brash third wheel. The Wheel saw the Jaunty lady and was quite smitten, and he decided to pursue her while she was out with her pre-boyfriend. She politely explained that she wasn't interested and indeed that she was here with another boy. Rebuffed the third Wheel retreated, got drunker and returned. He found similar results, and repeated the get drunker tactic over and over again. The entirely predictable consequence of this was the third whee...

I'm next to this guy who is sitting in front of a styrofoam plate of tamales, under the coiled Christmas lights of a food truck's tent. He's here by himself, aside from the four tamale friends that he has briefly found. He's "not a small man," which is my polite way of saying that he is quite fat. He's shaped like a wide diamond. Aside from the protrusions you would expect from him being both human and male, he'd form a pretty good triangle if you folded him hamburger style. But this is about tamales, not hamburgers. He is eating his tamales slowly with the care and grace of someone basking in a rare moment of transcendence. There's a hint of something else, too--as if he's taking care to avoid a catastrophic misstep. The mix is about four parts "that feeling of slowly lowering yourself into a perfect bath," one part "action hero figuring out the color scheme of timebomb wires." After each bite, he closes his eyes and quietl...