I didn’t spot him until the moment he took hostage the only empty table at the café. I had just sat down as well, but in a pretty lousy spot: right in the middle of the hall with my back to the door. Every time it opened a current of air pummeled me while I gripped my cappuccino and cursed under my breath. Outside, New York remained dirty after the most recent snowfalls. Great chunks of coldness lay everywhere unmelted. Hard, darkened gray slush resisted futilely the incessant footsteps. I had been wanting the whole afternoon to write a poem about this city that always managed to horrify me yet beckoned me to return. I had walked around in search of a magical place, one of those unknown spaces that suddenly stay with you forever. After a few hours, what I had were chapped lips, a deadened nose, and an anvil of clothing that my body wasn’t made to hold up. I was dreaming in Latin American that a good cup of coffee would cure all of my ailments and would allow me to open up a parenthetical space amidst the havoc of all that is material and souls, a havoc that could not sit still even when the temperatures had plummeted and the evening news was forecasting another winter advisory.

I didn’t spot him until the moment he took hostage the only empty table at the café. I had just sat down as well, but in a pretty lousy spot: right in the middle of the hall with my back to the door. Every time it opened a current of air pummeled me while I gripped my cappuccino and cursed under my breath. Outside, New York remained dirty after the most recent snowfalls. Great chunks of coldness lay everywhere unmelted. Hard, darkened gray slush resisted futilely the incessant footsteps. I had been wanting the whole afternoon to write a poem about this city that always managed to horrify me yet beckoned me to return. I had walked around in search of a magical place, one of those unknown spaces that suddenly stay with you forever. After a few hours, what I had were chapped lips, a deadened nose, and an anvil of clothing that my body wasn’t made to hold up. I was dreaming in Latin American that a good cup of coffee would cure all of my ailments and would allow me to open up a parenthetical space amidst the havoc of all that is material and souls, a havoc that could not sit still even when the temperatures had plummeted and the evening news was forecasting another winter advisory.

I had entered the café in the wake of a streaming crowd. Almost all of them approached the counter, ordered their drinks to go, and disappeared. When it came my turn to order, I hadn’t made up my mind yet and thus, in a way, had exposed myself: only a true foreigner could take the luxury of wasting the employees’ time (probably political science, philosophy, or film students), the great names of tomorrow who needed patience today because the stranger required a few extra seconds to think even though behind him the line as a consequence grew, and the waiting customers went out of their minds. I think I mentioned before that I sat in a bad spot. More than a table, it was a round chessboard held up by one central leg. Someone had taken one of the chairs. Without it, the board looked huge, desolate, like I could never be entertaining a guest across of it.