2weeknotice

freedom is just another word 
for the limits of control


dream fades to day
now.
now.
he sat, waiting.
the coffee was fine.  the cream, the sugar.
sugar above synthetic: the blues and the pinks.
sugar in the raw if they have it.
just another marketing hook, he thinks.
but if its free, wouldn't you prefer.
someone pays for it at some point, he thinks.
he thought about the line, "it's just business," in relation to condiment displays at cafes. he thought about how one single company had destroyed the cafe in America.
he got up- sipping on his coffee through a thin black straw, glancing at the cash-register girl who rocked back and forth from heal to toe as her words left her mouth with the same spirit, and finding her focus on a customer whom he did not notice, he shuffled to the display.  he tried to add some cream to his cup, turning the cap several times to see if perhaps it was one of those open/close twist tops, and it was, but it was still empty.  the 2% was fine but was closed and he nearly twisted the cap all the way off before he figured out that it was a press down top- telegraphed by the white kid behind him, maybe twelve- far too much personality for twelve he (our man) thought- and a supposed master of the creamers, because he (the kid) tapped our man on the arm and then tapped the top of the 2% while mouthing the word push.  our man didn't understand why he (the kid) was mouthing instead of speaking so he (our man), in turn, simply nodded and smiled while a tinge of an enormous yet compressed insecurity rippled through his spine.  quickly he chose two brown packets and, holding them together, ripped the top left corner of each, pouring the contents into his milky coffee while stirring vigorously with his black straw.  before turning, he took two more brown packets of sugar from their pale ceramic holder and carefully slipped them into his pocket.  for later.
with his head down, he shuffled back to his chair, thinking about the cash-register girl and her rocking and the kid and the twist-off and the push-down. and, before returning to his chair, he thought of sugar and subsistence farmers, not that he had ever seen one.  the image that entered his brain that he processed as subsistence farmers consisted of a shot of three South-Americans cutting down ambiguous green stalks that shot up into the sky, but then he thought that couldn't be right. as he sat, he remembered buying sugar cane with his mother.
in a few moments, he will repeat again with slight variation.
now.
now.
day fades to dream