Backdrop

Backdrops are not the action. They are not the story. The way the word COFFEE looks on a storefront window to a customer waiting inside for someone to arrive is not the story. It is not what the customer is really looking at. Pedestrians pass, then cars, then nothing at all.

There needs to be coffee still left in the cup in front of him when that someone arrives. This Sunday afternoon is not about ordering coffee and then drinking it. It is a process that needs to work backward. The coffee needs to point to a time not that long ago when the customer was not yet a customer, when he had just parked his car and walked up to the coffee house because someone had suggested it.

The coffee needs to point to someone who was not yet waiting the way he is waiting now.

The coffee needs to look like something that can easily be finished in a future close by, the cup pushed away, resignation disguised, disappointment masked, or maybe even relief smudged into indistinctness.

Unless a hand has turned the day.

Another hand on the table.

And then drinking became something to remember to do.

And remembering became something to do.

The way the six letters of the word COFFEE had looked to a customer waiting for just this someone to arrive.

The way they may always look now.