The old man sits at a table in Caffeine Eden and stares at his hands. "When did they get to be so wrinkled?" he wonders. He's watched his hands many times and never seen a wrinkle grow but one day he looks and it's there. Gravity. Gravity, he thinks, it's a sneaky sneak. Or maybe time. Time's a sneaky sneak as well. You can take a rest but it'll keep moving, pulling you along. He sighs. It seems as if everyone's sighing a lot lately. He puts his wrinkly hands around his warm cup of Hyper Holiday coffee and looks around the coffeehouse for a friendly face, but the only one he sees is Adam's and he's already pushed him about as far as he can for the day. Baristas dislike getting hit on (well, some of that depends on who's up at bat), but they also dislike having lonely people talk their ears off. The old man knows the look. It's the same look his wife gives him when he's talking too much, which is why he comes here when she needs a break. But the joint is half empty. Who's there to talk with? "What the hell's going on, Larry?" he asks himself. If he can't have a good conversation with someone else, then he'll just have one with himself.
"I don't know, Larry. Tom's dead so that's why he isn't here. That kid, Jeremiah or whatever his name was, moved to the East side so he's never around no more. Of the people in here I know, they aren't real good conversationalists. And the other ones don't look too friendly."
"Yeah, but usually it's busier than this, Larry. There's at least somebody to talk to."
"It could be the economy. It's bad."
"The economy's always bad."
"Maybe they're all out doing their bucket lists since the world's going to end."
"Maybe. You think somebody'd have on their list a chat in a coffeeshop."
"Well, I'll chat with you, Larry. What do you want to talk about?"
"How about the dollar bill. What's up with all those weird symbols on it?"
"They're probably on there to make it hard to counterfeit."
"Who counterfeits a dollar bill? Maybe a hundred dollar bill, but not a dollar bill. I mean look at it. It's weird," Larry thinks to himself and pulls a dollar bill out of his wallet.
He stares at it, "I mean Canadian bills have pictures of a bird or something on them. This thing has a pyramid with an eyeball. What the hell is that about?"
"And what's up with all the Latin? Are we at an old-fashioned Catholic mass?"
"And that eagle looks very uncomfortable holding an olive branch, arrows, and a shield."
"Don't forget the banner in his beak."
"And if you fold it in half and turn it sideways, the negative space around Washington's head looks like a vagina. I mean I get the birth of a new nation symbolism, but that's getting a bit explicit, don't you think, Larry?"
"I don't know, I think it looks more like the coastline of Virginia."
"What?! How could you think that?"
"I guess I just don't see sex everywhere like some dirty old men I could name."
Larry continues to argue with himself and finally gets so upset he leaves without finishing his coffee.
Blog Love Omega Glee is a novel by Wred Fright about two bloggers who fall in love while the world falls apart, which is being serialized on his blog. To start reading from the beginning or read another installment, please visit Blog Love Omega Glee Central on WredFright.Com. If you like what you've read, or you've read all of Blog Love Omega Glee and want more Fright, then please read his first novel.
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