The coffee shop looked pretty typical from the outside. Opening the door however, it had a spicy fug that took me back to the bazaars of Samarkand in it's heyday. The sent of coffee and rich tea blends had me recalling a happier time of exploring and sampling the many vendors with my wife. They bore me now as to the counter, my feet barely touching the ground as I drifted forward. It was like going home.

I suppose the cashier he asked for my order but my brain long and far away must have responded in Avestan because he was shoved aside and there she was. And there went my mood.

"Hi" I tried. "Nice place you got." The shop was dingy and the furniture worn but damn it, now I really could do with a drink.

"Don't 'nice place' me, you have some gall coming in here. What do you want." She glared at me.

So many ways this could go if only I could find the words to connect the 'now' to the backstreets of 'then'. I'd like to say her ire abated, that we sat, drank soma and reminisced. Or that I said something witty but as she would say, that would require wit.

I smiled bemusedly and ordered a chai latte. Maybe next time.