Life Deviations

The music assaulted her ears as she descended into cafe. "Have yourself... a merry little-" the slight breeze of the door closing, a with a deliberate casualness, and a second to reorient. East or west? Which way was the holiday season likely to not to have invaded quite yet? Or did it spread north to south across the island, the direction the sparrows, the only redeemable birds within a 30 block radius, had chosen to flee from its onslaught several days earlier? A more modern looking espresso bar- trying desperately not to be recognizably Swedish, maybe aiming more for a Helsinki, or at worst a Bergen. Generic insert-name-of-underground-indie-band whined in a more subdued fashion from the speakers set acoustically back from the counter. This seemed more acceptable. The holiday season was much more tolerable from the protective barrier of two sets of windows, separated by a cobble stone street and several strolling couples trying to look indifferent to life, their expensive flannel defeating the purpose of their jaunt. To "simply be one with the..." god only knows what, this was normally when she stopped listening. The dimly lit bar seating in the cafe contrasted in a comfortingly cliche way with the opulence of the Soho christmas behind the glass on the opposing street. Clean and minimalist, for what could be more American, it like the tree cautiously draped with a single strand of white lights, lounging like an oscar wilde novel, and the couple who had lingered in front were working to celebrate the holiday in the same fashion: blasse, one too tasteless, the other too tactful to acknowledge it. This made the pangs of home more easy to caffeinate away, one skim latte ounce at a time.