Crumbs.

 It isn't busy in the coffee shop today, not yet anyway. I'm a little earlier than usual, and the lunchtime rush is yet to come. There are enough tables to choose from, and there are no 'table-hugging' laptop users in the place. 

I find a place near the window, and from here, I can do some people-watching while writing some notes in the black moleskine (lookalike, I can't afford the real thing.)

I ordered a 'pain chocolate' and a Dubbel Americano to get my brain running. The waitress is new, a student by the looks of it. She took my order without uttering a word; she could be my neighbour's daughter, I chuckle to myself. I remembered ordering a double Americano in some other Coffee shop a while ago. The young girl there brought me two small cups of strong coffee, which I thought was hilarious.

From the window, I can see how quiet it is on the usually busy street. Something may have happened that I'm not aware of. Is Trump dead? Musk? Has the King of Belgium actually said something coherent? Is everyone at home in shock? Or is the economy as bad as they say it is, and are people waiting for their paycheck. Who knows? It's just coincidence, as most things are.

 I don't read or believe my horoscope, and I don't believe in the meaning people give to things they don't understand. I'm one of those boring 'seeing is believing' people. My dad used to say it was going to rain because his ass itched, sometimes it did rain, but I lived in Bristol then, and it rained a lot there, obviously, more than my dad washed his ass. 

Damn, these flakes of pastry are annoying; every time I bite into my 'Pain Chocolate', a shower of crumbs falls on my notebook, and I brush them off onto the floor. I feel guilty about the mess I'm making; someone later today will have to clean that up, and it will be my fault; I'm feeling 'hipster guilt', sitting here eating a 'Pain Chocolate', drinking great coffee and making a mess that some minimum wage person will have to clean up. All the time, writing as if I'm some author, somebody on a mission, or just this mysterious guy who comes in, writes stuff down and makes a mess. 

I listened to the news earlier today. Donald Trump really wants to end the Ukraine-Russia war. He's so eager. It is the Nobel Peace Prize he's after. Obama received it, so now he wants it too, but his peace prize will obviously be 'bigger' and more significant than Obama's. It will be the 'biggest' and 'most excellent' peace prize ever known to humanity.

Europe is slowly waking up to the realisation that we will have to fend for ourselves in the future now that our guardian - the U.S. - has had some mental breakdown and is very unpredictable (to say the least).

Should I worry? Should I sort out a 'go bag' ready for the disaster which a lot of people think is going to happen, whether war or climate-induced? 

Now I'm worrying about that 'go bag'—what to put in it? Passports, obviously. Then what? Cash? A wind-up radio? Sweets and biscuits? How heavy should it be? so much to think about; screw the 'go bag', I think I'll sit the oncoming disasters out; I mean, where am I going to run to? Maybe I'll talk to the guy who runs the coffee shop, ask him if he has thought the gloom and doom scenario through, and convince him to sit it out, too. We can go down, sipping coffee and eating a 'Pain Chocolate'; future archaeologists will find us at a table, with a cup in hand and crumbs on the floor. 'Homo-coffeeadictus'.

The street is livening up, and office workers are out and looking for food. 

I shouldn't be taking up a whole table for myself while people need to sit and have lunch; I'll head off home, let them sit here and take the blame for the crumbs.