A Clean and Pleasant Cafe

I'm trying to keep the Cafe open for those who need it. Not so many others are open just now. I've gone to lots of sites, and many have not posted for weeks. Pisses me off. There have not been as many visitors coming to my own site the past few days, either. The holidays, I guess. But there are some, like me, who trudge through internet streets alone looking for a comfortable place to stop for awhile, someplace to get out of the winter weather. Sure, there are bars and bodegas, but they are not the same. I try to keep this place clean and pleasant. The light is good and now there is the quiet. A clean and pleasant cafe is a different thing. There are those who might need it, who might need a light for the night.

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Turning off the electric light he continued the conversation with himself, It was the light of course but it is necessary that the place be clean and pleasant. You do not want music. Certainly you do not want music. Nor can you stand before a bar with dignity although that is all that is provided for these hours. What did he fear? It was not a fear or dread. It was a nothing that he knew too well. It was all a nothing and a man was a nothing too. It was only that and light was all it needed and a certain cleanness and order. Some lived in it and never felt it but he knew it all was nada y pues nada y naday pues nada. Our nada who art in nada, nada be thy name thy kingdom nada thy will be nada in nada as it is in nada. Give us this nada our daily nada and nada us our nada as we nada our nadas and nada us not into nada but deliver us from nada; pues nada. Hail nothing full of nothing, nothing is with thee. He smiled and stood before a bar with a shining steam pressure coffee machine.

from "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place"

Ernest Hemingway