The coffee house buzzed with both the chatter of its customers and the florescent lights overhead. A timer went off and a barista who wore a stained black apron slid a browned pastry from a filthy oven behind a pristine countertop. In the corner, a businessman clung onto his grey comb-over while trying to cough up the last fifty cigarettes. His glasses fell off the table and he bent for them, but this only intensified his coughing fit. A young couple at the next table over watched the man’s chubby fingers futilely grope for the glasses. If natural light had found its way into this place, it had to do so filtered through heavy green drapes and tinted windows.

In the line a tall man dressed in a white-and-spearmint-stripped polo rested his hands protectively on the shoulders of two children. They stood in the group, a mass of thirsty people waiting for their name to be called. The barista had to shout out a name a second time to be heard.

A woman stood at the counter with a humungous backpack strapped to her back. In her polished claw of a hand she held a cup of black tea with no ice. She blocked a young man from retrieving his order from the barista and caused general confusion with her bag’s obtrusive nature. Her blond hair stuck to her forehead and cheeks and her backpack hung on, almost bursting at the seams. When she left, a slight limp in her step, she had a pleased look on her face as the ice floated up to gently bob against her upper lip, where it collected sweat and cooled her tea.

The man who stood over the two children sighed when the barista conversationally asked if the beverage he’d been waiting for was for one of the children he guarded. Then he sighed again when he admitted that he didn’t agree with the kid drinking coffee, but their mother allowed it. And when the boy grabbed the large brown, blended drink from the barista, the man eyed the whipped cream that overflowed the bubble lid and sighed again.