| Smoky fingernails handle a cigarette like it gives new life. He doesn't take a drag off of it often, he just lets the smoke play against the cover of his book. I can't read the title, though the cover design looks like an Everyman's Library edition. Black hair, shoulder length, is resilient in the face of the wind and nonchalantly disregards any subtle hints at change; he is his hair, calm and cool in the face of the world. Heavy blue smoke has pressed creases in his face but they aren't yet all that noticeable.
What else would he wear but a linen shirt? The soft, subtle nature of the fabric stands out because of its relaxed difference, not because of its color or cut. His shoulders press high and hard into the collar, revealing muscles hanging just as hard from his bones. A man of no more than thirty-five rarely owns his shoulders as well as this man does. He places them proudly under the back of his ears, creating a small vent at the collar on the back of his shirt. Surrounded by others his age, he is in fact the only man to have room in his collar.
He is keenly aware of his chair, able to recline in a low-slung seat with the help of a solid core. His shoulders rock gently as his arms sway from cup, to book, to cup, to cigarette, to book, to book, to book. He must be inside of his own story, gesturing with his hands so as to help his characters drive home their speech. And why shouldn't they listen?
He welcomes the late afternoon sun, a daily embrace of a solar Ithaca, for he is home here, and has toiled in his youth to attain its meaning. The sun calls to him incessantly, and he appeases it with a momentary glance here and there. It shines brighter, gleeful in his recognition.
The coffee shop is happy that he is here. He sits outside and draws others inside, so that they, too, can try to mimic the earned repose that he embodies. In paying for a service, he does the neighborhood a service. His presence is so that children willfully slow to a walk when passing the tables on the sidewalk, and quarrelling couples stop to admire the flowering trees in his midst. Life slows and is embraced on his section of the sidewalk.
He grabs a chair, so as to leave an open invitation to anyone that might pass, seemingly adding further accentuation to the tension that he so easily already has created, the tension that can be ignored but is ignored by none. He calls to every passer-by in the intention of his reading, of his being present at this café. He exudes what people want but fail so hard in attaining. He grabs the chair, and places his feet on it. Nobody could have sat in that chair, anyway. | 
