I used to haunt coffee shops. When that was a thing. One of those spirits armed with a book, a notebook, a pen.  I’d hardly speak to anyone besides the barista.  I favored places that still served bottomless cups of coffee; it was the closest I could come to the greasy spoon joints I’d find at two in the morning, sometimes still drunk.  Coffee cost a dollar, though at some point some old codger would be there bemoaning used to be a nickle. That was before ‘Fair Trade’ was meant to make us feel better about the blood cost of coffee.

I used to haunt coffee shops, though my second ex-wife would call me rude for being anti-social in a social space. Like I broke the contract I never signed.  Though I would step outside to smoke a sometimes bummed cigarette, which I believed counted for something.

There are fewer tables and chairs for ghosts now. Now all the aimless spirits wander digital landscapes with earbuds blocking out the hum of other people’s lives. The coffee is To Go whether I want to go or not. We wander unmoored for the lack of coffee shops and hardly anyone has a cigarette to give anymore.