A Cup of Coffee

Black winds chase across the manmade
canyons as Carter leaves the bus station.
Towering structures hover all around him,
as snow comes billowing down the shafts
of darkness. While on street level, designer
dream worlds in which stylishly dressed
mannequins play act a high-style life of eye
popping riches, appear in storefront windows
everywhere, as shadow shapes bundle past
them from every direction, paying them no
attention, going every which way in a flurry
of commotion.
The big city, Carter shivers. He has to find
some work here. Nothing going on in his
hometown since they closed the plant down
and shipped the whole kit and caboodle to
Mexico, leaving everyone, jobless, and hopeless.
It was scary, this giant city, where everything
was too big and everyone was in a hurry.
“You can’t let life bring you down!” The
Preacher had told the congregation. “You
can’t let fear hold you down! You have to
move on! The Hebrews were afraid to go on.
They were afraid of the desert! They were
afraid of the danger! They were afraid of the
unfamiliar! But they couldn’t go back to Egypt
and despair. Moses made them go on. Moses
said ‘Trust in God!’ So they followed him.
And God parted the sea for them!”
There were beggars everywhere, families dressed
in rags shuffling through the cold, their faces filled
with fear. There were drunks, and what looked like
dead bodies huddled up in doorways and shady
looking characters watching him from alleys.
Carter had to get inside somewhere, get out of
the blizzard. He had to get his bearings, get his
head together. He slipped in a diner and sat at the
counter. Everyone looked like sleepwalkers. The
counter seemed crowded with ghosts and phantoms.
“Coffee” he told the waitress who looked at him
askance like the only reason he was there was to
get in her hair.
“Trust in God and the seas will open!” The preacher
said. Well there was no going back to Egypt, Carter
thought, that was for sure. There was nothing there
anymore. That door was closed, the lock changed,
the bridge to it burned. God better part that sea soon
for him, Carter knew, or he’d drown in this big city
with the rest of them.