Saturday, January 9th, 2021

Even the Sabbath cafe is closed for the lockdown. An ice cream joint around the corner has its door open as usual, but an array of tables block the entrance. Plastic menus on several tables show the available flavors. Workers talk inside. None notice me looking at the menus. A small store a few doors down is open. It carries liquor and some food. A handful of men usually sit outside, talking in something like Arabic, but they aren’t there today. I see an ice cream freezer out front. I pick out a cone and go to the counter. There’s a coffee machine behind it. I ask for an espresso. “Short or long?” As many times as people have explained the difference to me, I can never remember what it means when I need to. I ask for the long. I head back to the city square with the cone and coffee. I sit at the best-lit chess table. The cone is very good: vanilla, but with a layer of a harder butter-flavored candy on top and a chocolate coating. I hear birds in the tree above me. I put the paper top from the cone over the coffee cup just in case. There’s enough light for me to read more of the book on music composition I’ve been carrying around. A woman wearing what looks like a sari comes past me, smiles, and says “Bon appetit.” Children roll past me on bicycles. One heads straight for the street, yelling, unable to stop. A grown man at the curb grabs the boy and the bike, spinning with the momentum. The man continues to hold him as he cries. A couple runs over. The man gently hands the boy over to them and stands the bike up against a lamp post. He nods to them and walks away. The streetlight comes on, casting the family in a vague halo as the sun continues to set.