The woman sitting at the table outside is the only person not consumed by a screen. She divides her time between a book on Chakra Healing and the tiny dog in her lap, which she has wrapped in a blanket despite the bright, warm day. She looks up eagerly when anybody approaches as if hoping to see an old friend after a long absence. A wide-brimmed hat casts a dark shadow across the top half of her face. Blue-tinted glasses hide her eyes. A large, leather bag lies open on the seat next to her. Conspicuous among the jumble of personal items is the bright yellow journal poking out of the top of the bag. What does she write in the journal? Notes from her Chakra Healing book? Thoughts on the young couple that stopped to pet her dog? Sketches of what she sees? Questions for the person watching her from inside the cafe? She takes the journal out, retrieves a pen, pushes her book to the far side of the table, and prepares to write. For a couple minutes she stares off into the distance, wondering perhaps what to write. Then she changes her mind, cuddles her dog, and returns both pen and journal to her bag. She also puts the Chakra Healing book into her bag. She scoops up her dog still wrapped in its blanket, grabs her bag, and walks down the narrow street.
A mile away, a different, slightly older woman slouches outside another coffee shop, next to two yellow plastic toy trucks she had carefully arranged on the ledge when she first sat down. She struggled with her phone, treating it more like a microphone than a telephone. Holding it in front of her, she would say loudly “I can’t hear you” and poke at the screen a few times. She would then quickly raise the phone to her ear and just as quickly pull it from her ear, saying once again to the screen, “I can’t hear you.” Her conversation continued like this for a surprisingly long time. Eventually, she stuffed her phone into her bag and wandered off, leaving the toy trucks on the ledge. I don’t know if she came back for them.