The Big “S” Society

By: Felix Perry

I plant my ass on the hard wooden chair, trying to blend into the camouflage of the bland factory created atmosphere. I sip my near five buck cup of terrible coffee while watching the tide of bodies riding in and out on the caffeine highway. Old, young, male, female, professional or blue collar, they all slip in and out through the swinging tide of the big “S” doors.

Computer geeks stake out and lay claim to the four tables fortunate enough to be close to a power outlet. Nursing café au lait, latte or cappuccino deluxe as if they were the holy elixirs of today’s world…who knows, maybe they are.

A nervous middle-aged divorce sits by the door watching nervously for the blind date a friend of a friend set up. She brushes invisible lint off subdued clothes she wears, the slight cleavage just a hint of what maybeis to come if the man she is waiting for turns out to be a possibility...

Three fatigued mothers talk about little Johnnie’s or little Suzie’s latest success in the neighbourhood playground or daycare, fighting their usual eight o’clock bedtimes to partake of the one night out a week their husbands grudgingly accepts as a responsibility of parenting.

An elderly gentleman with greying hair and eyes bearing the weight of loneliness sits by the Chapter’s magazine rack reading borrowed news and yesterday’s dreams while a sympathetic clerk turns a blind eye to his pettyh theft.

A group of teenagers with tables and seats jammed together to create a quorum of invincibility against the establishment that they only embrace to get their whipped creamed iced drinks. Their thumbs and fingers beating out the rhythm ofthe word to people sitting only a table width away.

Now and then when there is a brief silence of the canned music you can hear the tell tale click clack of knitting needles from the Kindred Souls Knitting club that reserves the table with the “good” lighting.

If you happen to walk to the washroom you will pass a small meeting room of the Redeye Reader’s Club and may hear bit’s and bites of pseudo intelligence debating the latest bestseller that some of them almost read.

Behind the counter, staff wearing uniforms like armour, dish out the medicine of the masses with forced smiles and impersonal candour dreaming of someday being anywhere but here. Still…someday they will be drawn back as inevitably as the tide returns each morn.

I drain the last of my own poison and go for a refill knowing that it will only encourage and fortify the sleeplessness I face each night but grudgingly accepting it is the price I pay to keep four walls from crushing mind and spirit at home. I write a few more lines of drivel as I presume to believe I am an author….