drag me down**hiatus**

Coffee Shop Man

I breathed out into the air seeing the tendrils of my breath dissipate into the wind. I breathed in when my lungs asked for it, only for the air to welcome me with a form of smoke lingering around. I turned sideways towards the smell and realized that the once empty house abandoned by a family who left along time ago had a truck pulled into its driveway.

The truck was by no means extravagant. It had peeling deep sea green paint and the model must have been from the 90s. The back was loaded with the things a man might decorate his house with if he were never to have a girlfriend. My thoughts lagged on this for a second before I saw just that, a man step from the front door of the house, with a cigarette in hanging in between two fingers on his right hand.  He had a peculiar sense of dress. He didn't look like he belonged in the countryside of this horrible town.

He looked like he should be sitting in a coffee shop contemplating which book by an old author best represented him in his coming of age twenties. He wore a brown fedora hat atop hair that was a bit messy to the length of his shoulder. Reflective aviators, a shirt that looked like it was from the seventies with its pattern which was half undone at the top showing of two sparrow tattoos. The tightest pants I have ever seen a man wear and boots, correction heeled boots. I looked down then, cautious of my actions in hoping they wouldn't draw his attention.

I begin to step off the porch of my house and onto the straight-bricked path of my front yard. The snow that covered most of the ground made a crunching sound that wouldn't be hard for coffee shop man to hear. As I neared my destination at the mailbox, gathering the mail I couldn't help my eyes as they looked slightly over to his direction. Keeping my head down, moving the mail in my hands so not to look too obvious. He stood there grasping some horrid piece of art or what I assumed he thought was art. He held half of it in his hands and the other still in the truck as his attention was solely on me now.

The heat that spread through my cheeks was welcoming, as the coldness outside had rendered them cold a while ago. I moved the mail to my right hand and looked up towards my house. Then I turned my head to him. He was still staring at me but he had moved the piece of art out of the truck as the sound of it scraping against the metal frame of the truck graced the silent environment. He turned around then and started to walk back to the open front door.

I stood there still, without words and unsure of what that interaction was. I trudged through the snow back up to my own front door. Just as I closed the door and set the mail on the table by the door I walked to my left, the dining room, and over to one of the windows. I looked at the house that was now breathing life again. And wondered about the strange man. And why when he looked like he belonged in a city came here. Just as I was closing the blinds my eyes connected to a window that held the man  farther up on the second floor,looking right at me, as if he suspected I would be at that very window looking at his new house...for him. He continues to stare until I saw a slight smirk grace his face and he stepped away from the window. 

My mind started to race as I myself stepped away from the window. How had he gotten there so fast. How had he known I was going to spy through that window. I shook off a shiver that ran up my vertebra and let it fade from my mind for now.