Creighton Barak
June 29, 2026
As they pulled up to the building, the taxi’s brakes came to one last screeching halt. Shona looked out the window of the cab. Gravel and tin cans littered the sidewalks and gutters. Wet paper bags inexplicably blew across the pavement under short gusts of city wind. Across the street a homeless man sat, propped up by his cart. He was looking at nothing.
“You sure this is the right place? It’s even more run down than I’d imagined,” the cab driver spoke with concern.
“I’ll be fine. Thank you so much. I don’t know what I would hav—” He cut her off.
“No thanks necessary. Just be careful out there, alright.”
“Of course.”
Shona stepped out of the cab onto the sidewalk. One of those short city gusts permeated the fibers of her dress. She shivered but tried to hide this from herself. She stood there for a second, taking in the building in front of her. She was on the West side of the city now, and the sun had settled into its rise, leaving a strong glint on the eastward facing windows. Inside, all she could make out was a cracked neon “OPEN” sign that had probably been hanging for three or four decades. Above a tattered, black and white striped awning, a great wooden sign posted the business name. “Cafe Malfino.” All of the glass in front of Shona made her think of those cheap plastic children’s games. Like hungry hippos, she thought. Shona took one more moment to collect herself and tried the door. With a yank, she was able to swing it out towards the street. Stepping in, the place was full of dust, and it reeked of something impossible to name. Shona coughed and covered her mouth with a hand. Besides the dust, however, the interior of the cafe was immaculate. All seats and barstools stood erect in their rightful places. Each table and booth was set with plates, linens, silverware, and water glasses. The wood was untouched by rot or termites, the velvet faded only by the sun.
Shona was admiring timeless photos on the wall, presumably of the cafe owners, when she heard a noise come from the kitchen. Something was creaking. A door? Floorboards? Stairs? Before she could finish her thought, a man burst through the swinging kitchen door. He was dressed like something from the 20’s. The man dawned a butternut cream suit from head to toe, fedora included. It was obviously tailored, yet still seemed oversized. Underneath his suit jacket, a necktie of subdued green layered itself over a bleach-white dress shirt. The tie was accompanied by matching green lapel pins and cufflinks. A baby pink pocket square paired nicely with jazzy loafers of the same shade. The only thing uncoordinated on this man’s body was the wooden baseball bat in his hand.
“Oh, it’s only you.” He was almost out of breath. “You’ll have to forgive me, there are no working clocks in this building, or in this neighboorhood for that matter. I didn’t realize the time. Please, allow me.”
The man disappeared into the kitchen and emerged a minute later with two steaming mugs of coffee.
“Do you take cream or sugar?”
“Both, please.”
Shona followed the man to the corner booth, next to the “OPEN” sign she had been observing earlier. At first the two sat in silence, looking anywhere but at each other. The man looked out the window while running his hands through a short, salt and pepper beard.
“What do you see?” He spoke, finally.
“What do you mean?”
“Out there,” He gestured toward the city. You could see the skyline over the tops of the buildings across the street. “What do you see when you look out over the city?”
Shona took a moment to sip her coffee. She was stalling for time. It was early, and she was already processing a lot.
“I see confusion.” The man continued as if he expected no response. “Confusion… and, not to be grim, but… despair. I see lots of people. Hundreds, no, thousands of them going about their lives in a crowded city. But how many of them ever even stop to consider one another? And I mean aside from when a dog is barking or a football game is too loud or some couple’s fucking going at it in the next apartment over. I mean each and every person in this city leads a life just as complex, just as full of problems and emotions, just as easy and as difficult as the next guy. But does anyone every really stop to consider that? Hell no! All anyone has time for is their own story, their own timeline, their own bloodline. But, truth is—”
He stopped to sip his coffee. He turned to face Shona now. She could feel his presence, his stare. But she continued looking out the window at the sunrise.
“Truth is, seconds don’t move faster or slower for any of us. And we all get the same number of seconds. Of course, some of us die earlier or later, and there’s always things like comas and such. But for the most part we all get the same number of seconds. And each and every second means something uniquely important to all of us.”
“Say you were in the forest,” He went on. “You’re in the forest and you come upon a bridge. This bridge gets you across a river that you couldn’t have crossed yourself. You don’t know how to build a raft. And even if you did the current’s moving too fast anyway. Now let’s say you’re crossing that bridge and you find a stone. On that stone it’s engraved, ‘In memory of.’ Well now that means two things. Somebody constructed that bridge in honor of someone else. And now, just by crossing it, you’ve honored that person’s legacy. You see, and in that way all is good and all is well. Point is, I think people should build more bridges, and they should honor each other more. Because we’ve all built bridges and we’ve all dedicated them to something. And years later, someone has walked your bridge, but they don’t know it and you won’t know it and no one will be honored unless we leave markings of intention. Once you do that, you’ll never have to wonder if someone is crossing your bridge, or if that person is being honored. You won’t have to wonder, because you’ll know.”
A long, heavy silence fell over the room. The sunrise was almost over now.
“So anyway…” The man started to say something else, but his voice trailed off along with the thought.
“Well on the one hand,” Shona broke her silence. “It is true that the city is full of despair and hatred. Humans living like sardines, trying not to drown in the very air they need to survive. Every person wakes up to find they have to go on living each day. Sometimes it just feels like auto pilot. Sometimes it feels like you’ve found the smallest spark of hope, of inspiration. Only for it to be smothered as quickly as it began by the impending evils of the city.”
Shona stole another glance out the window. The final minutes of the sunrise left a red hue over the skyline. Everything red, she thought, eventually leads to blue.
“But then on the other hand I see the purest form of life. To put it your way, this city, and everything in it is a bridge. And every day, we honor those people who have constructed and dedicated those bridges to loved ones. We honor those people and their lives just by walking in their footsteps, riding their trains, climbing their buildings. We make their actions anew in our own. And I think people see that. I think they know it in their hearts. I think that’s what keeps them going. It is not the spark of hope, that ignites and goes out like a candle at the end of the day. Rather, it’s the beating heart of a steam engine. It’s the burning coals, added to and tended by all the feet taking steps around this place. That’s what moves us.”
Shona was still looking out the window as she talked. The glass was fogged by dust and cobwebs, and now her breath. The sunrise had finally ended, leaving a shroud of blue morning light hanging about the world. This time, both of Shona’s eyes remained open. She finally turned to look at the man’s face, but he was looking down, fiddling with his coffee. He had barely touched it. The steam had stopped rising from their cups. Shona watched as he withdrew a small packet from his pocket, ripped it open, and slowly emptied its contents into the cup. They both watched as a stream of crystals poured out like a miniature waterfall. The man placed the empty packet on the table and gave his coffee a stir. Shona could read the letters on the packaging upside down. “SALT.” She gave a shrug, but the man was too busy tasting his creation to notice. He set the mug down with some force, causing the table to shake a bit. The two made eye contact for the first time all morning.
Shona was almost taken aback by the sight. Although his skin was immaculate, and his beard perfectly timmed, there was something off about the way he looked. Despite his high-spirited getup, the man’s face had a drawn-out look to it. It was as if his eyes had seen a thousand images too obscene even for Al Capone. It was as if his ears had known all too well the sounds of human desperation. It was as if his nose had met the unforgivable stench of death, and his beard the stain of blood. This was not the man she had thought she was speaking to.
“Anyways, I think we should get to the point of the matter. Thank you for meeting me today, and on such short notice,” he spoke.
“Yeah about that,” Shona interrupted him, “How did you hack my radio like that? I talked to my neighbors, and they said the news played like normal everyday.”
“Ah yes, that. Well we have someone on our team who works for that station, the one you listen to everyday. She was able to convince the station heads to play an additional one minute and thirty seconds of ads after the morning weather report. The owners agreed because the ads already played there, and it would be better than interrupting music later on to just to blast you in the face with consumerist bullshit. Of course, we sold you the radio you currently have. It’s a small digital alarm clock, right? That way we could send you messages whenever we needed to, just in case. You’re radio was designed with a remote switch that allows us to overtake its reception and replace it with our own transmission, all while remaining on the same radio frequency. Anyways, we had to do all this to ensure that you did not miss any of the morning news reports due to our sending you a message.”
“Okay,” Shona began, but then paused. “But why me, why here, why now? Why go through such a convoluted plan just to get me here?”
“That much will become clear with time, I promise you that. What I can tell you is that all of those people, all that hope, all that despair, that great-steam-engine you called it. All of that is at risk. That engine is running out of steam, and the tracks beneath it are nearing their end. And whether they know it, or whether you know it. All of those people need you here, now. What I can tell you is that a great force, a force bigger than you or I or that convoluted plan, has been put into motion. And it is our duty to make sure that force doesn’t hurt anyone in its path. Do you read me?”
“No, not really.”
“Okay, let me put it this way. We need to take a very precise set of actions, and we need to complete them when the time is just right. And if we are able to do that, then all will be right and good in this life and the next.”
“You’re still not making any sense.”
“Well for starters, let’s go to the beach. You’re not late for anything, are you?”
“Well no, bu—”
“Great!” The man shot up from his seat. “Come with me.”
He marched toward the swinging door.
“Wait,” He turned as she spoke, “Why did you put salt in your coffee just now?”
“Well, I’m not sure why that’s relevant now. But while you may think of salt as a stinger of wounds or an enhancer of flavor, it can actually make bitter realities much easer to swallow. Like coffee, for instance.”
The man turned and pushed through the kitchen door. Shona got up to follow him, but she paused when she heard the same creaking sound as before. She moved to chase after him before she noticed a tattered leather wallet on the booth where he had been sitting. She picked it up and called after him. But when she made it through the swinging kitchen door, there was no one. The back door had been locked from the inside, and there were no other exits from the kitchen.
“Sir!” She called out anyway. “You forgot your wallet!”
Shona waited for a response to no avail. She knew there wasn’t one coming. Deciding she needed some fresh air, Shona went out the back door. A parking lot. It was empty aside from one vehicle, parked directly in front of her. It was an old, classic looking car with the top down. It was shiny and bore two huge headlights which stuck out like snail eyes. With black paint and white wall tires, the convertable belonged in a car show, not some crusty old parking lot. This must be his car, she decided. She sat down on the curb and pulled a single cigarette and tiny match box from her stocking. She always carried one for situations like these. Shona struck a match and inhaled that first, bittersweet puff of smoke. I wonder if it’d go better with salt, she thought.
Out of curiosity, Shona finally opened the wallet. She was looking for a name, but instead all she found was a black business card tucked in the section meant for an driver’s license. She pulled it out, noticing it had soem weight to it. It was, all-around, and expensive looking card. Stocky, but not dense. Shiny, but not chintsy. On one side the card was blank. On the other it read, “SALTY DOG” in white letters at the center. Below that it just said, “A Reconstruction Company.” Shona put the card back in its slot, took another drag, and continued sifting through the wallet. The only items left were a twenty-dollar bill and a key. Again, it was expensive looking, and heavy. It was bigger than a normal house key, and the whole thing was colored a pale blue. Shona put out her half-smoked cigarette on the curb and hopped over the car door directly into the driver’s seat of the convertible. Once settled, she stuck the key into the ignition and gave it a turn. Nothing. No pit pat, no putter. Nothing. Was it dead? No, how could he have gotten here if that were the case?
Shona sat there for a moment, decided what to do. By no will of her own she pushed her foot hard on the clutch and twisted the key in the wrong direction. With all the explosiveness of an old-ass car, the machine roared into an idle from a cold start. The sound must have surprised her, because when Shona looked down, she found the key had snapped in two. One half remained in the ignition. The other half dangled shamelessly from her fingertips.
There she was, sitting alone in a running car, in an empty parking lot on the wrong side of town. No key, no bag, no cigarette, no strange man in a weird getup, and no direction. All she had was a running car and a bitter taste in her mouth. She threw the wallet on the seat next to her. Something fell out onto the leather. She reached to pick it up.
Turning it over in her hand she read the letters on the packing. This time they were right side up.
“SALT”