He wore a watch. He always needed to know the time, though he never had any particular place to be. If he had some place to go, he’s positive that he wouldn’t be late. Today, a glance at his watch made the fedora that rested lightly upon his head move from its habitual place. He reached his soft hands up and pushed it back into place with one of his slender fingers.

With his fedora in the proper place, he reached into the brown leather briefcase that he carried at all times. The briefcase was a gift from his parents on his 18th birthday. He never had anything important to put in it; though he might if he had something important to do. Instead he carried a tattered old notebook which he used as a journal to document the things around him. There was nothing special about it; just a plain, 70-page, college-ruled Mead notebook.

It wasn’t the paper, he felt, that made writing special. He thought it was in the pen. Indeed, his pen was a work of art. Gold and obsidian worked together into the slender form of a fountain pen. He told people that it was handcrafted in Italy at the turn of the century; only a hundred of them had ever been made. For all he was ever told, this might have been true. But in reality all of which he knew about the pen was that it came from his grandfather, left in a will, and it had been his for the entirety of his working career. Looking at the pen he saw aged gold, smudged with fingerprints and the obsidian worn dull in places from years of use.

Every day the man came to the same coffee shop on the same street in the same city. He felt it was more than his job to be here every day, he believed it to be his duty. On sunny days he would sit outside on the patio and sip his coffee, two creamers and two packets of sugar, all day. On days when the weather was not so fair he would sit inside next to the fireplace and drink a cup of tea with milk and a packet of sugar in it. Never did he take tea outside nor did he ever take coffee inside.

Every day it was the same routine. He was at the door of the coffee shop fifteen minutes after its opening. He would get his beverage and take his seat in the appropriate place according to his drink. Once there he would pull out his notebook and pen. Then the rest of the day was filled with him observing people as they walked by him. He would write down which way each one was going and what it appeared that they were doing. He observed and wrote. He talked to the other customers of the coffee shop, each one had a story to tell. When he heard a good one, he made sure to write it in his notebook. Almost every story made it into a notebook of his.

At home, he had many bookshelves filled with many notebooks filled from years of sitting at the same coffee shop. His friends suggested that the go through them and try to find the best stories or thoughts that would lead to a good story and put them together into a book. He never felt they were good enough for the world to read. How could the things that happen near his coffee shop interest anyone?

He was a writer who would never be satisfied with his own work.