I am simply looking out the window, minding my own coffee shop business, when I count three red buses go by, one right after the other. I don’t remember there being so many red buses. Not only that but they’re also the UK double-decker type. It were almost as if one day, when I least expected it, I looked up and there they were, an entire fleet of them—shiny, new and very red. As a rule, red buses are no problem, until there are too many of them and then it becomes something like a plague, and that’s always a bad idea. I sip my coffee.

I hadn’t stopped musing about red busses when he walks in, takes a seat next to the other window and crosses his legs all in one sweeping motion. It’s nothing special, just your basic yellow and you can see where crusty lines of dried sweat have started along the sleeves. Truth be told, you simply don’t see many yellow-dishdasha men these days. Of course, there’s your egg-white, winter grays and browns but nothing like a plain mustard yellow. And so, what can I do but secretly watch to see what he’s all about. That’s when somebody’s brown cat decides to peer into the window, as if it’s thinking of coming in for a cup of coffee but let’s see who’s there first. And of course even the cat can’t help but stare at his yellow dishdasha, as if to say, ‘What’s that all about?’ The cat meows. I can’t hear it but its mouth for sure is meowing. Meanwhile, the longer I watch and wait, the more he and his yellow dishdasha become normal—bright but normal. He sits, no coffee, no tea, nothing like a cellphone to stare into—sitting. But then, just when I am thinking of leaving—all done with my coffee and cake and ready to return to the world of red buses—he turns and looks directly at me, rubs his chin and sticks out his tongue. There’s no use getting angry over things like this, not really, and so I smile back. He gives his yellow collar a tug and turns to look out the window, at the brown cat looking in, whose mouth hasn’t stopped meowing. I cannot help but get the feeling he’s done this before—this sticking out his tongue business. That’s when I see his tattoo. I am surprised that I didn’t see it before, earlier. It’s hard to say what the tattoo is all about except a swirl of blueblack riding comfortably on his wrist, snaking onto his fingers. So there you have it: yellow dishdasha with tattooed wrist, not to forget an aahing tongue.

This is when someone else enters the coffee shop and together he and I turn to see. The new coffee shop person, a lawyer-looking man with one of those mannish ponytails, takes a seat nearby. When she, with blue apron, comes out from behind the counter, she brings him coffee, and then hurries back behind the counter; and he, almost immediately, sends a coffee spoon clattering to the floor. The lawyer tries once, twice, to reach it, to pick it up, but both times it is just beyond his reach. The lawyer stops to consider: to get up out of his chair, take one giant step, bend and pick it up, or not. His considering over, he decides on not.

Three people look unhappy: the coffee shop woman, with blue apron, behind the counter who is slowly returning to the lawyer’s table to pick up the spoon, the lawyer himself, who hasn’t stopped frowning up at the ceiling and the yellow dishdasha with tattooed wrist. Before I leave, I suddenly get the urge to walk over to him and shake his hand, saying, “No hard feelings.” As I think about this, I cannot help but stare at him again; I don’t mean to, but there’s just something about thinking and staring that sometimes go hand in hand. By now the brown cat has disappeared. This time when he sticks out his tongue he means it, and when he clenches his fist his tattoo swells. No smile from me. Meanwhile, the cook is somewhere in the backroom, puttering with pots and pans. The coffee shop woman, her back to us, on the telephone, thinks something is funny and hasn’t stopped laughing. In the end, when he gets up and moves towards me, the lawyer looks up surprised, even startled, as if he didn’t know others were there. But it’s not my fault, not really. His yellow dishdasha started it.

Photo by Ashkan Forouzani on Unsplash.