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.