Code

In my shirt pocket is my ring and an internet code. I got the cheapest thing—small black coffee—one hundred twenty minutes of internet for $1.95. I waited too long to take it off, the ring, you probably noticed but maybe you didn't. I stared at the chalkboard, hoping to divert your attention away from the pulling on the knuckle skin. How can things go on so easily yet be so hard to take off?

Hands tell a world. I've heard all you have to do is look at someone's shoes but it's not enough. You work with your hands, you decorate them, they're stories. Are you committed? Are you clumsy? Did the knife get away from you? I wanted her to know that I was alone in the best possible sense of the word, even if I couldn't quite know it myself. My security blanket I guess it is.

Outside the sun is bright and my screen is dark, I have the light down low because the battery will die soon and my charger doesn't reach. A girl next to me gets her sandwich—turkey on sun-dried tomato focaccia—and I remember that there are inside workers and outside workers. My girl, she's an inside girl, worker, she won't be coming out here to check on me. I can't see her through the window, I can't see the window at all. I'm at fifteen percent and my computer just dies. Why should that happen?

"Excuse me," I ask inside. "My computer died, will this code work on my phone for the remaining time?"

"No," she tells me, "sorry."

"Can I get another code then?"

"We're only supposed to give them out with orders."

"I just ordered something," I tell her.

"And you got that first code." She's right, damn her. "Sorry." I brought exact change. I hate fucking rules.

I go back outside and the sun is so hot. The iced coffee costs more, but you get less. It's things like that which make no sense to me. But I suppose the people will pay. People always want what they want and end up paying for it.