by Phil Temples
Missy feels lonely and isolated after moving from the big city to a small town of five thousand people. Being blind makes it all the more difficult for her to cultivate new friends and become involved in social activities. Every day, she taps her cane along the three blocks of sidewalk to a neighborhood coffee shop. She sits and enjoys a fresh cup of coffee and a pastry, catching snippets of conversation and other peoples’ lives and basks in the ambience. On her way home, she dutifully discards her coffee cup and any remaining contents in a nearby trash receptacle. Unfortunately, Missy had earned a reputation of a pariah because she dumps her coffee cups in the United States Postal Service mailbox.