The End of the World

In the heart of the city, in the heart of the restaurant district, there’s an alleyway. Down the end of the alleyway stands an oddly named dessert café called ‘The End of the World.’ It is small and a little bit strange, with a weird post-apocalyptic theme, but it is well-loved by the locals and is a popular destination for young couples as an after-dinner destination when they’re not quite ready for their night to end but are also not quite ready for anything more risqué.

I’ve noticed this young man who frequents The End of the World. He comes in every Friday night at some time between nine-thirty and ten. He orders at the counter and then he goes back outside to sit in the outdoor dining area which faces into the alley.

In the winter, he’ll wear his jacket and gloves, but he doesn’t seem to be too bothered by the cold. In the summer, when the café is at its busiest time of the year, he always tries to sit apart from the crowd and even sits on the ground sometimes if there’s not enough seating. When it’s wet, he’ll hide in the shadow of the adjacent high-rises and when it’s not, he’ll sit out under the stars but he never sits inside.

He usually orders a brownie and a decaffeinated coffee, or sometimes, when it’s warm out he’ll order a milkshake instead. He always pays with an eftpos card and then while he’s waiting in the outdoor area for his order, he’ll be reading a book, or listening to music, or playing on his phone.

At some point in every one of this man’s visits to the café, he’ll stop what he’s doing and stare up at the small patch of sky that’s visible between the buildings. He stays like that for several minutes and then takes a deep breath and goes back to whatever he was doing. It’s a little bit strange, but I don’t think anyone else has noticed.

I’ve seen this man in other places too. Sometimes he’s at the bank, fiddling with a pen while he waits in line. Sometimes he’s at the supermarket, in a tracksuit, buying groceries for one. Occasionally, I’ve even seen down the street, simply walking through the crowd with his hands in his pockets. He’s just another face in the crowd so to speak, but I’ve noticed him.

I wonder about this man sometimes.

What’s his name? What kind of person is he?

I’ve seen him wearing a university backpack so I think he might be a student. He’s often reading new detective novels at the café while he waits for his coffee so he might enjoy mysteries, or maybe he just likes to read in general?

He never seems to smile though, and he’ll only occasionally talk to people. I’ve seen him around the city with a couple of people who are probably his friends but even around them, he looks kind of distant. I wonder if he’s actually enjoying himself or if maybe he’s just kind of going through the motions and hoping he doesn’t screw up.

He seems the most comfortable at The End of the World. This might just be me projecting my own feelings onto him but he seems to be calm there, especially during the times where he stops what he’s doing and looks up into the sky. I can never tell what he’s thinking during those moments. I wonder if he’s happy or sad I wonder if he’s remembering something bitter-sweet from the past or if he’s thinking of something in the future.

I make up little stories about him sometimes. I pretend that he’s was a secret agent and his actions are all part of some kind of elaborate code. When he orders the brownie at the café, that means that his mission is going according to plan, and when he taps his pen at the ban, it’s actually a secret message being transmitted into the surveillance cameras and sent back to HQ. But then when he doesn’t order the brownie or he doesn’t tap his pen, I wonder if that means he’s been discovered by enemy agents and is trying to throw them off his scent. Weirdly, I find myself worrying about this person I don’t know because he’s in imaginary danger from an imaginary rival spy organisation.

Sometimes I pretend that the man is waiting for his long-lost lover. The two of them used to go to the café together on dates until one day when her aristocratic parents forced her to go away to boarding school in order to arrange her marriage to someone else.

Now, he writes letters to her every day, telling her that he loves her and is waiting at the café for the day they can be reunited. That’s why he always seems so distant and that’s why on Friday night’s he always sits outside That way he can see her walking down the alleyway on the night they are reunited and he can run up to her in one of those slow-motion lovers scenes that take place at the end of bad movies.

Then, when she doesn’t show up, I feel bad for him. But then I remember that the internet exists and the long-lost lover trope seems to lose its romance.  

I think the man works nearby. At the café, he’s always wearing a black button-down shirt and matching pants. he might be a waiter at one of the nearby restaurants. Or maybe he’s a bartender or a cook. It would make sense if that were the case and that’s probably what most people think when they see him. They don’t wonder about him, they don’t make up weird stories about him, and they probably don’t even really notice him. After all, why should they? To them, he’s just somebody they see from time to time who likes to eat at a little alleyway café name The End of the World.

For me, I can’t help but to notice him and wonder. I wonder what he’s thinking about while I sit outside and stare off into the small patch of sky that’s visible in between the buildings. I wonder what other people think of him when they see him. I wonder what they say about him. I wonder if they notice his weird quirks and habits. Can they see through the cracks in his persona and see his anxieties and innermost thoughts and fears? Mostly though, I wonder if anyone has noticed me noticing him. Then, I take a deep breath and go back to what I was doing.