A bustling crowd gathered inside the coffee shop. All of them eager to get out of the bitter cold. 7 AM, prime time rush, customers migrated to the most popular 24-hour coffee shop downtown to get their drinks, only to leave in a rush. Daily, my eyes scan over the crowd, and I am let down once again; none of them had extraordinary lives. 

            The customers consist of the typical members of society: the soccer mom who always has way too much on her plate, and the boring, but overly friendly tall-white man in the black business suit and tightly gripped black leather brief-case, who says nothing more than, “Hi there.” to anyone who glances in his general direction. And my personal favorite, the business woman who struts into the crowd with her high, high heels that make that clacking sound every time she steps, and her perfectly curled hair bouncing as she makes her way to order her Caramel Macchiato with no Caramel and no sugar. 

            Of course there are duplicates of them, like doppelgangers, but of their personalities rather than their looks, though I’m sure Toto would disagree. There were too many salon crafted blonde-high ponytails, and polished nails, and seamless spray tans; the mens’ hair gelled neat and slicked back. Their sweater vests, lint proof; their ties, perfectly color-coordinated with the details of their button-ups. They seemed to be more high maintenance than the women, with their up to date clothing and technology. Yet, they all seemed to be competing in their eagerness to succumb to the consumption of materialistic satisfaction that tends to maintain its tight grip on high-society. 

            MacBooks were scattered too frequently across the tables and their owners seemed hypnotized. Those waiting in the order-line seemed to impatiently tap the bitten apple on the back of their iPhones as they glared at their blank screens intently, unwilling to rip their eyes away. Aside from the pre-programmed robotic-humans, I was provided a few distractions, or so I thought. There were the social butterflies; the ones that continuously spoke like their life depended on it, but they seemed too pre-occupied in their conversations to take a breath. Still, their discussion seemed void, like the words articulated were blurred together, constructing sentences only in theory; not for the purpose of communication. Forcing me to conclude that this distraction was also a mere mechanical person appearing in an atypical form. This empty cycle of people rushing in and out, like an accordion opening and closing, seemed to be playing on a loop from dawn to dusk: never-ending.

            There was a woman once standing at a table, who was busily blabbering to another one, who she seemed to have known forever. Yet, there was no compassion expressed in either of their eyes. The chattering woman, she caught my eye, or-I should say-the white diamond on her finger did. When the sun struck in the most perfect angle, the gem glistened, blinding my peripheral view. Toto barked, upset with my new distraction. Although my initial attraction was the rock, I couldn’t help but notice the way her eyes glowed when she looked at it. It was mesmerizing, like she could love nothing more in the world. When her gaze shifted to the man beside her, her enthusiasm seemed to have been suppressed with minimal effort, as though she had said yes to the ring. Still, there was something satisfying about their relationship. It seemed like a perfectly packaged present; the receiver of such a gift would have been too amused to rip open the extravagantly decorative wrapping paper.  

            This seemed to be a common theme: every relationship seemed to be a fantasy. Toto and I, we were real. A little boy saw him once-my toy dog, I mean-and he begged his dad to buy him a real puppy, I watched as his father used $2.54 to hush the boy, with a cake pop. His favorite flavor, he claimed, was Strawberry with white star-shaped sprinkles on top. The father understood this momentary happiness that the boy craved. He accepted it; he chose to use this to his advantage, until its expiry date. I could tell by the detached look in his eyes, that he had hoped this day would never come. He had hoped his son would never grow to realize what true aspirations were. There was an unsurmountable passiveness required of him to encourage such behavior. Clearly, the father didn’t care: that wasn’t part of his character description. Instead, he held the boy’s hand as he skipped to a broken tune that he hummed, while he chewed scruffily on the remnants of his cake pop.  

            There was a young barista that managed to distract me from my observations every morning. She would always rush in her last order at 7:52, so she could rip off her apron and skateboard her way to school. She grabbed a free coffee on the way out, as though it satisfied her to earn more than just her basic salary-wage would be a more fitting term for the amount she earned. I wanted to name her Sally, because she seemed so naïve to all that was happening in the coffee shop. I decided Sally was not a befitting name for a girl who chose to ignore her surroundings, and with that realization came so many uncontrollable emotions, too many of which I could not, would not label. Though young, the barista had a choice: something she had, and I didn’t. She glided past the clear glass wall, different somehow, less automated than the others. 

            Moments collided to remind me, repeatedly, that in this never ending circle the stuck-up and snotty, the unsatisfied and materialistic, and unreasonable fantasizers all lived together in harmony. At times, these aspects managed to internally co-exist within each character of the town’s most popular coffee shop. The daily customers that our young barista served included men with the fancy watches who couldn’t tell time, women showing off their orange-tans which they got from being cooped up inside, and the kids who aspired for nothing more than to cherish in the next millisecond of hollow happiness. Yet, this coffee-shop was my single haven. My heart longed for the place and all of the automated people in it, but I was restricted entrance by the boundary of the glass wall. I was forced with the punishment to look in and never be able to be in, to give in. Though, I’m sure Toto would disagree.