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His lenses reflected the light from the neon in the cafe. He sat alone at a small table, his back against the wall. The cafe’s staff had come to call him “Sage” which had been shortened from “Sunglass Guy,” a term he had earned because rain or shine, whenever he appeared at the cafe he was wearing sunglasses. Not just any sunglasses, but cracked ones. Cracked ones with leather side shields and nose guard, completely obscuring his eyes. His hair was always the same amount of ruffled. Between that and the inability to see his eyes, his age was hard to determine.

He sat in an affable way enjoying what he ordered every morning- one Irish coffee. He watched the staff bustling about, taking care of the other patrons, finished his drink and left. “Bye Sage,” The baristas called after him. He turned to face them and waved as he gently backed out of the establishment. 

“I swear, when Sage hands me his money I feel better,” said Veda, the newest barista.

“Get used to it,” one of the more veteran of the workers snipped.

“Yeah, I was talking to him once while he handed me his mug and I swear everything I was worrying about in my life alleviated- for, like, the whole day,” expounded another.

“And he’s always got a one-liner that’ll pick you right up,” a third added.

“One time he gave me the most genuine smile I’ve ever seen- I swear to god it was like he hugged me and he said ‘it can always be worse.’ That was like two months ago and I still think about it every day,” the first continued. 

“Where did he come from? Do we know what he does,” Veda asked.

“Not at all. He started coming in maybe four months ago. He always gets an Irish coffee and he is always, ALWAYS, wearing those sunglasses. Sunglass guy. Sage,” the third answered.

“Have any of you asked him about himself,” Veda further questioned.

“Of course! But he always turns the conversation back around asking how we are or evading in the most pleasant of ways,” yet another staff member added to the conversation as he sat down a tray of dirty dishes.  

“I’m gonna find out. It sounds like a really cool human interest piece,” Veda resolved.

The next day, Veda followed him after he left the cafe. She had taken the job at Nearly Nick’s- a name which no one understood as it was not currently or previously owned  by a person named Nick- for some extra money while she studied for her degree in communications. She had fancied herself a reporter since she was very young. Having abnormally adored quick talking reporters in the black and white movies from the nineteen forties. 

She witnessed Sage stop traffic to, very slowly, escort a turtle out of the middle of the road. She saw him stop and talk to a very old man sitting on the sidewalk playing a harmonica and drop something into the hat he had upturned in front of him. As she passed the hat she saw the only thing in it was a fifty dollar bill. Sage seemed to wonder, not in a hurry to get anywhere. Every so often he’d stop to stare at something for what seemed like a very long time. She witnessed him literally remove the shirt from his back to wipe some paint from a Mercedes. The car had accidentally been dripped on as it passed under an overpass being painted by adolescents as a service to the community. 

After a couple of hours she followed him to a brick structure in severe need of repair. It looked not just condemned, but a place no person should attempt to enter. He reemerged from it with a kettle, and a French press. 

“Cup of coffee,” he enthusiastically offered without even looking at her. 

Caught off guard she attempted an explanation, but a kind wave of his hand let her know he wasn’t bothered.

“It’s all good- I noticed you right after I left the cafe and thought you must have just gotten done. But then I saw you again near the underpass,” he continued in a playful manner, “I figured you could use a little pick-me-up after all that walking around.” He poured two mugs of coffee and sat one on one of the mis-matched, rust-ridden chairs next to the front door of the dilapidated building. “It’s Veda, isn’t it,” he asked 

“Yes, but none of us know your name,” she answered as she sat in the other rusty chair.

“They call me Sage and I like that. You can call me Sage.”

“But they just made that up- shortened it from sunglass guy.”

“I know, I like it!… lets you know they care enough to come up with a nickname, eh?”

“Well can I ask then why you keep wearing broken sunglasses? I noticed the money you gave the harmonica player.”

“Ah, another pair wouldn’t be magic.”

“Magic?”

“That’s right. They have the power to help people.”

“I find that hard to believe…”

“Well why don’t you try them on,” Sage said as he removed his glasses and handed them to Veda with his gaze still fixed on the horizon. 

“Are they supposed to do something,” Veda asked. “They just look like regular sunglasses to me,” she skeptically commented as she turned her now spectacled head all about the landscape. 

“You don’t believe me do you?”

Veda, feeling very silly wearing a stranger’s broken sunglasses and debating their magical properties, tried to answer as diplomatically as possible, “it’s not that I don’t believe you.” Though she abjectly did not. 

“That’s alright, disbelief is easy- like darkness; it will always be there. Belief, light, those take energy, those take effort. We have to work for those.”

Veda sat silently reflecting on that notion.

“Veda,” Sage broke the silence. “I try to imbue consideration into every interaction I have. For example at the cafe, when I hand you money, I know that I earned that, in order to exchange it for something that will bring me joy or nourishment. That you are working to, of course, make money, but you’re also taking care of me by preparing something for me. It’s an act of service, and to a larger extent, love. The crack in the glasses constantly reminds me to view things with consideration. They remind me that things are impermanent. A visual reminder, at all times, not to take things for granted. So in a practical way, they are magic. They’re practically magic!”

“That’s kind of incredible,” Veda admitted, stunned at the convoluted but simplistic logic. 

Sage tilted his head in her direction to nod in approval. Just as she swiveled to meet his eye line, he casually returned his view to the horizon but not before she caught a glimpse of the most golden yellow irises she had ever seen in a human. They almost seemed to glow. 

“Wait, look at me… do you…” she fumbled with her words, in awe, as she removed the sunglasses to verify what she’d just seen.

“The glasses are working, aren’t they,” Sage replied as a large grin spread across his profile.