I walk into the restroom of this coffee-shop I rarely frequent to find a man in his 40’s washing his hands in the sink and crying.
And I mean crying.
Gobsmacked, concerned, and a little frightened, I ask him what’s wrong...and in this little kid’s whimpering, sucking-in-air-while-trying-to-talk-and-sob-at-the-same-time voice, he says, "it hurts."
I look him over - he’s holding his hand under the rush of water from the tap, just heaving fat puddles of water from his face, and I see no blood in the sink, no evidence of mangled digits, no anything but a middle-aged man with graying temples wailing like he caught his ankle in a bear-trap.
"What hurts?" I ask him.
"My finger," he moans, my sympathy waning ever so slightly. "I caught it in the stall door," he continues, motioning towards the offending door with his sloppy, glistening face. I lean in to take a look at this terrible injury, and he shows me an index-finger that all the markings of being squeezed...somewhat.
It was summarily unimpressive, truth be told, and the man must have agreed, quickly explaining that it "looked much worse a second ago," as a way of justifying his over-the-top agony.
"Mm," I said, nodding and making my way over to the urinal.
"Tsk," I said, absentmindedly whilst peeing. "There’s danger lurking around every corner."
And like that...he was gone.
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