I reached for my headphones. Not the little white ones, but the massive half domes deep within my bag. A table away from me in the cramped café, two souls were projecting a conversation in volumes fit for a lecture hall.
My hand stopped short. I found myself eavesdropping. And as I did, my annoyance melted into compassion.
The woman sat leaning hard against the wall, as if the chair itself was not enough. She told of cancer and medical bankruptcy the sort of life-unraveling events when body and finances break at the same time. “Sometimes I wonder if God and Satan made a bet on me,” she sighed at the end of the story.