5th Avenue Coffee Shop

He was always the center of attention, right? An individual with such a god complex that never ceased to prey upon the innocent and unknown. Being known. That is what fueled every fiber of his being and created such a self righteous man. I saw him everyday, with his dark eyes and penetrating stare. I could tell his eyes were looking to his own glory despite our subtle glance to each other. Admiration and wandering eyes that lingered were like little offerings. His very soul devoured the smiles that flashed his way without caring to give anything in return. His order was always ready and they knew his name by heart. The 5th Avenue Coffee Shop was not ready for this kind of man.

The days continued on and the coffee shop flourished from his daily contribution. They didn’t seem to appreciate his daily visit as much as he thought they did. Slowly the eyes no longer glanced and no one was devoted to the man who trekked into the 5th Avenue Coffee Shop every morning at 6 am. His appearance was simply that of routine and they knew it all too well. Were they bored of him? Or were they all so blatantly unaware? He was a regular after all. Regular by association rather than definition he seemed to say as he greeted the room with an upturned chin. He was nothing close to regular and only he seemed to care. No one gave him a second thought or maybe they never did. Their sips became more frequent and glares slashed through the air.

It was truly pathetic. He was nothing more than a fly on a wall. He did not give up his otherworldly status so quickly and continued grasping to every last smidge of humility and kind deed. They looked at these things as nothing more than some perfidious gesture. Every time I saw him, he looked more and more distorted. Was he always so feeble? Did he always sound so desperate? It was as if he was fading into the very background he once dominated. The charm that used to draw people in had morphed into a veneer, a cheap mask that could no longer disguise the decay beneath. His attempts at humility were clumsy, awkward; he fumbled through conversations, clutching at compliments like a lifeline. But they slipped through his fingers, leaving him grasping at straws. The laughter that had once surrounded him now echoed in mocking tones, a cruel reminder of what he could never reclaim. I noticed the way he avoided mirrors, afraid to confront the stranger staring back. With each interaction, the gulf between who he was and who he pretended to be widened. His confidence eroded, replaced by a deep-seated fear of being unmasked. Was this the fate of a god brought low? Or was he merely a fool who danced too close to the flame, only to be consumed by his own hubris?

He was yearning and reaching for something he knew he could never have. Giving away pieces of himself like he was at an auction. Nobody bid. So the very marrow of his being went to waste, and not even the scavengers would touch it. His own insolence had led him to this. So I stood and I watched every day at 6am in the 5th Avenue Coffee Shop. I watched as he pleaded and begged for someone to notice his decaying figure. As if his drooping head would catch the heart of some empathetic fool who thought they knew his mind. But nobody would understand, no one would dare ask him to enlighten them on the matter of his situation.

He continued, every day, with the same routine. He entered the 5th Avenue Coffee Shop at 6am drained and dismantled. His eyes, although dark, were beginning to lose the spark they once had. The weight of his troubles pressed upon him until he no longer could entertain the idea of filling the shoes of his praised persona. He left, coffee in hand, with nothing left but a hollow figure and an empty soul. Each day was a repeat of the last, a monotonous cycle that drained him further. As he stood in line, the chatter around him blurred into an indistinct hum. Once, he thrived on this energy, absorbing compliments and laughter, but now it felt suffocating. The barista's cheerful smile, once a beacon, now stung his ego. He could feel their eyes on him, judging, assessing the remains of a once-magnificent facade. He faked a smile in return, but inside, he was crumbling. Each sip of the bitter brew was a reminder of what he had lost—the joy, the admiration, the love. Instead, he felt like an imposter in his own life, a ghost drifting through the streets, haunted by the shadows of who he used to be.

Then I laughed. This man had come so far as to lose his own self to the reality of imperfection and self-criticism. His confident and persuasive pattern of grandiosity led him to become the pitifully withered man I now see in the 5th Avenue Coffee Shop. What a joke—only a fool would succumb to their own mind and believe their imperfections. Pathetic. Yet, there was a part of me that felt a twinge of sympathy, buried beneath layers of judgment. How could someone so once vibrant be reduced to this? He had clung to a delusion of grandeur for so long that the fall was catastrophic, like a star collapsing in on itself. I watched as he stood in line, glaring at the mirror to his right, waiting for his coffee to be ready. There was nothing noble about this self-destruction. It was a spectacle, an unintentional performance that made me both cringe and gloat. Perhaps he was merely a cautionary tale, a reminder of the dangers of narcissism and the fragility of self-worth. Yet the laughter bubbled up again, unrestrained, at the sheer absurdity of it all. I then looked away from the mirror, coffee in hand, and walked out of the 5th Avenue Coffee Shop at 6am.