Meredith’s eyes grew heavy, the hum of the heater and warmth of her winter coat coaxing her into sleep. The magazine in her hands sagged onto her lap, the slow crinkling of the paper startling her awake.

She yawned, reaching her arms up to the ceiling and stretching her weary back. One glance at the little red clock on the counter told her what she already knew. She had to open the door in six minutes, and the lazy trickle of tired people starting their morning commute would shop around and grab a coffee, maybe a twinkie. Meredith chuckled, as she did most days when she looked at that clock. It was the type of clock that belonged on the nightstand of a 6 year old kid, one with 2 obnoxiously large bells at the top and cute, stubby legs keeping it standing upright. On many occasions she thought about replacing it, maybe for one of those sleek, modern digital clocks all of the young people kept on their desks, but Meredith adored its charming nature. It made things interesting, if only slightly, but she did need it.

Someone knocked on the glass paned door, its hollow echo puncturing the monotony of the heater. Meredith peeked up at the door. It was John Parsons, one of the regular customers that came to Meredith’s shop on most mornings. When he saw Meredith notice him, he took one hand out of his coat pocket and waved. His breath clouded the glass.

Meredith’s small wooden chair groaned as she stood. She grabbed the keys off the counter and hobbled over to the door, muttering about how her knees aren’t what they used to be.

After struggling for a brief moment with the keys, Meredith opened the door and smiled. The chimes hanging off the side of the door hinge clattered against each other, celebrating the open door.

“Hey Meredith!” he said as he stepped past the door frame. “How’ve you been?”

“Good, good, everything’s good, sure;” Meredith said. “Did you get that promotion? If you don’t mind me asking.”

John searched around the shelves slowly, pursing his lips. “Ah, the big man gave it to Mike instead. Do you know him? Mike Davis?” 

“Yeah, I’ve seen him around.” Meredith sat back down into her chair gingerly, her hips sore from long years of running the shop. 

John fished a twinkie from the stout metal shelves and walked up to the counter, placing it in front of Meredith. “Just this. And, hm,” he looked behind Meredith at the old pot of coffee on the wall, the same coffee that she made last morning. “I’ll have a coffee. Decaf, please. Then I’ll be on my way.”

“Of course.”

Meredith poured the stale coffee into the small cardboard cup Meredith placed on the counter. The wind chimes rang again, the mark of the routine trickle of people looking for a morning coffee and a twinkie.

Meredith handed John his coffee and gave him his change, her eyes struggling to stay alert, and the wind chimes rattled once more as he left. She glanced at the little red clock. 6:34. She could have sworn John left the same time yesterday.

A small line formed at the register, made up of 3 or 4 familiar faces Meredith noticed would come every other day or so. One was Jack Pachulia, the other was Toby Robinson, and in the back was Lynda Reeves. One by one, they got their morning coffee, and Meredith would set the cup on the counter, pour the coffee out of the pot, hand it to them, leave them with a smile and let them be on their way. The hilarity of the uniformity was almost a reason to open the shop each morning. That and money.

The door closed behind Lynda, the wind chimes announcing her departure as they always so faithfully did. Meredith glanced at the little red alarm clock. 6:40. The shop was empty, as it usually was after the early commuters. Meredith leaned back in her chair, crossing her arms and letting her eyes slip shut, the dreariness of her routine sapping the emotion from her eyes. Martha Anderson usually came around 7. She would be awake by then, but it didn’t really matter if she wasn’t. Martha would come anyway.

The chimes jolted her awake, the sound of the wind gusting through the door pushing her eyelids open. She stole another very quick glance at the clock. 6:42.

A pulse slid down her throat and into her stomach as she locked eyes with the old man, about her age, in the door.

He was wearing a gray down jacket, one hand buried in his pocket and the other pressing a smartphone to his cheek. His shoes clopped against the tile: black leather loafers, their tips fading into white at the toe from long use. 

“Oh, god, that’s terrible,” the man said into his phone, rolling his neck and raising one hand out of his pocket to scratch the thin stubble clinging to his chin. 

Meredith didn’t want to listen, but this moment was just so unprecedented, so intriguing, and that man, who was now hinging at his hips in search of something other than a twinkie, stirred something in the back of her head like she discovered a memory she forgot she had. 

“Yeah, yeah, I’m on my way, I’m just at, uh.” He paused, reaching his hand back into the shelf and pulling out a premade ham sandwich. “Erm, some random small general store.” Another pause. “The middle of nowhere. Of course I’m coming. Queens, right?”

Meredith couldn’t help but stare, her mind racing, digging through old memories, old times from years ago that existed in her head but had rotted to the point where there was no clear image, and she couldn’t decide whether she was making things up or those memories were real.

But that face, that face felt hauntingly familiar. It hurt her to her very core that she couldn’t put a finger on it. Has it really been that long? she thought to herself. Since I left this place?

Meredith refocused her gaze to find herself face to face with the man, separated only by the counter she sat behind day by day, from 6:30 in the morning to 3 in the afternoon, sunk into her chair like it was the last thing she would ever know. She didn’t say a word to the man, not that she didn’t want to, per se, but because it felt wrong in the strangest way. As if she was never supposed to meet this man again, that is, if she had ever met him before in the first place. Meredith kept her eyes down, focused on the dollar bills being slid across the counter and into her hands. 

“Just this. And some water, actually.” The man’s voice struck her upside the head, leaving Meredith reeling for some sort of place, some sort of name to assign to this stranger. “Please.”

No, not a stranger, Meredith thought to herself.  She was convinced. That face. Remove the stubble, remove the square glasses with thick, hefty lenses, remove the slicked back, fresh out the shower hair, remove the wrinkles and sagging cheeks and she was left with this strikingly familiar face. Marred with age, yes, but it was there.

Meredith flashed him a smile as she gave the man his water from the mini fridge. The man covered the bottom of his phone and quickly muttered “thanks,” very slightly waving his hand as he walked away.  It was on the tip of her tongue. The name, the place, the date. Meredith sighed heavily, frustrated at the ineffectiveness of her aging brain. 

She swore she knew him. Back from a time she was young and free, back when everyone told her the world was her oyster and she genuinely believed them. Meredith could definitely remember that: the excitement of the city that made her feel so alive, the belief she could truly be something great in this world. Back when the world really was her oyster. 

Maybe she saw him at the bar, where she used to go out every night with her friends after school and dance at the club after she was done with her classes. It could have been a face on the subway, the subway she took on the way to school. She met a lot of eccentric people at the 8th street station. Street performers banging on buckets and strumming guitars, families yelling at each other trying to find their way around, students rushing to their classes with books spilling out of their bags. Meredith remembered a lot of these people, she even got some of their names, but none of those people were the man standing in her shop. She could picture him standing in the subway next to her, sitting across from her in the bar, but her memory failed her. It was all so long ago, years since she went to the bar or the station, years since she went out and spoke with those interesting people.

The wind chimes clattered and clanged against each other as the man swung the door open. Cold wind billowed its way through the tight walls of the store. He pulled his jacket a little tighter around his chest.

“Hey!” Meredith called out. The man turned around, holding the phone slightly further from his ear. “Have we, uh,” she hesitated, nervous for reasons she didn’t understand. “Have we met before?”

The man’s muddy brown eyes looked her up and down slowly. He was already standing out of the shop, holding the door open with the full extent of his arm. His mouth opened, but he stopped, his brows furrowed in thought. 

“I don’t think so, no.” He smiled weakly. “Well, uh, have a nice day.” 

The man walked away, leaving her with the fading clop of his loafers on pavement and his thinning gray hair blowing in the wind. Meredith stared at his back until he turned out of sight, a last, feeble attempt of placing his name, of seeing his face at the bar or the station or the train or school, but he was already gone. 

Now it was just Meredith, sitting behind the counter of her shop in her small town alone  until Martha would come for her morning coffee at 7 o’clock, and Meredith would forget the old man with worn out loafers and a gray down coat that gave her 5 minutes of life.

She looked at the red alarm clock. 6:47. 13 minutes until the wind chimes woke her up.