It was a gorgeous sunrise.

There were no smokers on the patio, so I took my coffee outside.

Two men lounged at the opposite side of the patio.

One of them was a large Asian, probably in his mid-thirties. He wore a light-grey dress-shirt, a thin black tie, black suit, black boots, and mirrored sunglasses. I decided he was Yakuza.

His companion was about my age, maybe a few years younger. Judging by his faint accent, he was originally from Eastern Europe. He was wearing tan jeans, a pale-yellow polo shirt, and slip-on loafers. No socks. His skin had the orange tinge of a tanning booth user. His hair was thinning and he tried to hide the fact; unfortunately, in the breeze, it accentuated the obvious: he assiduously raked the strands back into position with the fingers of his left hand. He was KGB.

They were having an interesting conversation; but, as they were at the other side of the patio, my eavesdropping was hindered. They were talking about music styles — jazz, classical, and rock — and how that related to the concept of positively charged ‘holes’ , instead of electrons, as a definition of current flow. Then they started discussing the ramifications of a deterministic universe.

Just when the discussion was getting heated, a Harley cruised into the parking lot. The biker was a massive man with tattooed biceps the size of my thighs. His Harley burbled and farted with an impulsive array of base-blasts. Not only couldn’t I hear the conversation over the bike’s blatting, but it was as if the Harley’s entrance was a signal to Yakuza and KGB; they got up, shook hands, and left in opposite directions. It all seemed so spontaneous. Or was it choreographed?

The biker stopped close to where I was sitting; my inner-organs resonated to the rhythm of the engine’s exhaust. I felt an odd anxiety, a compulsion to get up and walk away, but I was enjoying the warmth of the sunshine and forced myself to remain in the seat. Soon, however, the fumes from the Harley made me nauseous, so I stood up and started to walk home.

Within half a block I remembered that I’d wanted to buy something from the store beside the coffee shop. I stopped and turned around, but I couldn’t force myself to retrace my steps.

I walked to the park and sat on a bench. There was a young man sitting on the grass, picking at the nylon strings of his guitar. The breeze blew faint notes to me and I recognized the song; a Pat Metheny melody that often recurs in his music.

I walked over and dropped a toonie into the guitarist’s hat; a pale-grey fedora, which sat upside down beside him. There were a few other coins inside, and an old, wrinkled five dollar bill.

“Thanks, man,” the guitarist said, and continued to play. It was then that I realized he wasn’t playing Metheny; it was a Beatles tune (more precisely, I suppose, a Lennon/McCartney composition): perhaps he’d changed songs while I’d walked over.

I nodded to the guitarist and moved over to sit on a smooth boulder by the water. I could still hear snippets of the guitar, and I could also hear the pleasant, muted music of children playing on the other side of the field. The children’s squeals and laughter ebbed and flowed with the rising and falling of the wind through the leaves of the trees.

The breeze caressed me with the pungence of Scotch broom (Cytisus scoparius); obnoxious to many, but an aroma I love.

The anxiety that had followed me from the coffee shop dissolved.