Devils Don’t Take The Day Off

Morning coffee with a horror

It was Monday morning and I wanted to sip my dark roasted coffee with room for cream and enjoy my roasted red pepper egg white bites in peace, but devils don’t take the day off.

This coffee shop is clean, just kinda comfortable and everyone is clicking at an efficient speed. Uber-Eats drivers picking up their orders, business professionals enter and exit with routine precision, the district manager meets with employees to discuss how the lobby is managed. Greetings and goodbyes required, “What’s your day looking like?” questions feign friendliness. It’s corporate community and there’s an illusion of calm caring that holds it all together. It’s a middle, upper class vibe that feels like a safe harbor from too much isolation but not forced interaction, we’re together here, but I don’t have to meet you. It’s a lucrative bubble that’s reproduced on almost every other corner in cities across the globe.

This well orchestrated matrix works until the zombies show up. This morning Meth and Fentanyl invaded our personally catered dreamland like a Walking Dead nightmare.

Monday was coffee with a catastrophe as a man lurched towards our safe place with a display of drug induced possession like I’ve rarely seen. He arrived behind me, outside in front of the all-glass windows, I became aware by the reaction of customers and staff. I turned to see what car crash had grabbed their attention, it was Frankenstein’s monster approaching the store. He was in the throes of a herky-jerky dance that twisted and contorted his body in painful and erratic flailings.

I was faced away from him but he was outside behind my window and everyone was looking at him through me. I was caught in an awkward tension of choosing to turn around to gawk in horror or act like I didn’t care and keep sipping and scrolling.

Then he came up to the glass side door right behind me. I could feel his torment as he gangled and gesticulated looking in as everyone looked out.

Then he made his way to the front door and with a series of arm swings was able to latch his hand on the door handle and open it. The female district manager and employee blocked him and told him to not enter. He surprisingly retreated. The tension in the room was off the charts and everyone’s coffee was growing cold.

Police were called as he laid in the drive thru, spinning, arching, convulsing and contorting. Then he made his way to an SUV parked next to my truck. He began throwing his arm at the door handle to the horror of all watching. He eventually managed to open the passenger side door and with a few minutes of in and out attempts, kind of threw himself in and shut the door.

Frantic voices from employees spread through the store trying to locate the owner but nobody responded. We all sat there shocked at whatever was unfolding inside. Then, the car tail lights came on and it slowly drove off.

Someone knew him and was watching him the whole time. Off they drove leaving the rest of us bizarrely relieved and disturbed.

An employee came by table asked if I needed a refill. She asked me by using my name. The surreal personalized question in the aftermath of the drama that just unfolded was profoundly discombobulating.

I left with a troubled heart and mind.

Psalms 38:3-12 “Because of your wrath there is no health in my body; my bones have no soundness because of my sin. My guilt has overwhelmed me like a burden too heavy to bear. My wounds fester and are loathsome because of my sinful folly. I am bowed down and brought very low; all day long I go about mourning. My back is filled with searing pain; there is no health in my body. I am feeble and utterly crushed; I groan in anguish of heart. All my longings lie open before you, O Lord; my sighing is not hidden from you. My heart pounds, my strength fails me; even the light has gone from my eyes. My friends and companions avoid me because of my wounds; my neighbors stay far away. Those who seek my life set their traps, those who would harm me talk of my ruin; all day long they plot deception.”

Life will never be the same because of this drug epidemic in our cities. Our sons and daughters are the carnage of this hell unleashed and where will we go to sip coffee and eat our delicacies unmolested?

The question is a torment between conscience, commerce and catastrophe. I guess there’s the drive thru…if nobody is laying in them.