CoffeeShop Blues: 2015 Traveler's Edition | Page 38

CoffeeShop Blues A dark and foreboding mood swept into my soul just as my lunch break beckoned. I strategically decided to take a cigarette break right before my officially scheduled one so that I could effectively squeeze out a couple of extra minutes of downtime. A thick drizzle had settled in during the morning, which was not altogether surprising considering London’s usual climate; which is predominantly soggy. To protect myself a little from the rain, I crammed myself into a corner with a small overhang. It was in the alleyway that lay adjacent to the clothing store where I worked as a salesman. There were restaurants across the way, and also, a dance studio. I took a few furtive glances into the dance studio like a proper pervert at the ladies tearing it up on the dance floor in their leotards. Today wasn’t a day for trifling fantasy though. There was something sad going on up there in the cosmos. Tragedy was hanging thick in the air. You know that irksome feeling when something true is worrying you? It is a sense deeper than your average run of the mill paranoia, a sensible and quiet sadness grounded in truth. When I went into our break room and took out my phone there was a message from my cousin, whose floor I was sleeping on. She was wondering if I had seen Tapper, her recent ex-boyfriend. He had gone missing. My heart dropped. Something bad had indeed happened, I just had that sense of inescapable dread. A sick feeling sat in my gut for the rest of the afternoon. A thick, very depressing cloud of worry and darkness followed me home that evening. The actual weather mirrored my internal state rather well, it was a good example of my old friend pathetic fallacy. I walked in the front door of my flat and into a picture of grief; A community had gathered, a wake had begun. 38