He sits at the table, quietly smoking a cigarette.

The walls are drenched in poorly painted murals, like a menagerie of fifteen year olds with all whim and no talent were given free reign over the coffee shops interior. No judgment, the coffee is cheap, even if it looks like the bad end of an acid trip as soon as he walks in the door. He always sits next to the sloth. The fact that the sloth is wearing a plastic container cap on his head while being nailed to an ash tree with Cheetos is something he chooses to ignore.

The register is always manned by one or two teenagers dressed in black, embroidered polo shirts. He wonders sometimes whether any of them had a hand in painting the acrylic holocaust. He brought up once when he was feeling bold, but the girl behind the counter just looked at him with this look of distant derision. That was the last time he spoke to one of the teenagers. Now, he just sits by the sloth, sipping his coffee, black, waiting for his demons to show up on the page. It doesn’t happen often, but one of these days he hopes it will, hopes one day he won’t need the coffee, and the demons that end up on the page, will stay there.