The Gift
Suddenly Mr. Kilmer’s eyes went wide, his hand dove back into the trench coat pocket and reemerged with the tissue, which arrived at his nose just in time to catch a tremendous, head-snapping sneeze.
Joe 59 smiled, nodded agreeably several times and stared at his patron, blinking at random intervals so his gaze would not appear uncomfortably intense. This was quite a breakthrough, and Joe 59 found it quite satisfying just to listen. Mr. Kilmer squeezed his nose and blinked rapidly, then tucked away the tissue once again. At the same time, without so much as a glance, Joe 59 poured precisely16 ounces of coffee into a biodegradable cup, added the non-fat steamed milk and scoops of foam, and sprinkled the concoction with cinnamon then capped it off and handed it to Mr. Kilmer with a napkin and straw.
“Biscotti? It’s home-made just this morning.”
“I’m on a diet.”
Joe 59 shifted to a new topic that he thought might appeal to Mr. Kilmer’s sense of scientific curiosity.
“A friend of mine once described a theory suggesting that life may have originated many times independently on Earth billions of years ago, but only one common ancestor was tenacious enough to survive, and everything that is alive today is descended from that single organism. The researchers speculated that the last universal common ancestor might have been differentiated from the many failed organisms by as little as a single base pair in its genetic code.”
“A friend?” snorted Mr. Kilmer.
“A customer,” Joe 59 duly noted with a smile. “Could I interest you in a diet bran muffin with extra protein?”
“God, no!” Mr. Kilmer jabbed his index finger at the pay pad on the counter, snatched up his coffee and hurried out the door.
Joe 59 watched as an auto cab promptly pulled up to the sidewalk and lifted its doors like a streetwalker hitching up her skirt. As he did every day, Mr. Kilmer ignored the autonomous vehicle’s invitation and struck off on foot toward the waterfront. The word anachronism swirled through Joe 59’s advanced cogware functions as he wiped down the counter. Mr. Kilmer seemed oddly out of step with the world, and yet the fate of the entire city might rest with his ability to forecast an unforeseeable event. He wondered why it was that nobody seemed to listen to Mr. Kilmer’s warnings even though they were backed by a preponderance of evidence. At least he had succeeded at providing Mr. Kilmer with a positive Java Joe experience—an opportunity to unburden himself—which for a man facing the knowledge of his own mortality either by tumor or earthquake must have come as welcome therapy. He chuckled quietly, wiped down the still spotless copper piping on the espresso machine and waited for his next customer. Perhaps the demise of the spider had helped break the ice with Mr. Kilmer so that some good had come from the creature’s sacrifice. Life was a funny thing, Joe 59 decided.
