Omar's coffee

Omar sat quietly sipping his coffee in his usual haunt in downtown Damascus. He had listened to the intermittent gunshots ringing through the neighborhood the previous night as the rabble-rousers yelled in pitched anger at the implacable regime. Omar took another sip. It soothed his nerves and quickened his pulse simultaneously to be in this familiar spot. He refused to be intimidated by the urban guerrillas and took no side in their internecine conflict; what was it to him, a relatively poor cobbler? He thought about buying flowers for his wife, who had slept poorly while clutching his arm every time she had heard a crash of a window being broken in the vicinity. Or perhaps buying her a loaf of bread, her favorite kind with the honey baked inside, the one that cost a day’s wages? He smiled, sipped, and wiped off the stubborn drop of coffee that had escaped his mouth and slowly trickled down the side of the white demitasse. A child walking outside saw Omar’s smile and she smiled back a crooked toothy grin. She walked up to him under the green canopy to his wrought iron table, and, still smiling, she pushed the detonator button.