I was at the water cooler the other day when Rebekah said "If you want to find a story, get out of the office." She was passing on an old piece of journalistic wisdom that I chose to follow, only so far. I went down to Tully's Coffee on the corner with stacks of my needy files demanding attention, organization or excavation.

I took a seat behind a bearded man reading a magazine, who sat just behind another bearded man, filing papers in a binder. We all sat in a line, the only customers in a quiet caf/ on a quiet day on Market Street. Just then, Iraq showed up, uninvited.

The man seated closer to me, the man in the middle, got a phone call about someone who would be news the next day. In a coffee shop, mobile phone calls are all conference calls. I tried to block it out but the worn manila folders in front of me were no help.

Middle Man's half-dialogue concerned an officer in the Stryker Brigade at Fort Lewis that was conscientiously objecting to his assignment by refusing to go to Iraq, or he was just being cowardly, depending on where you were sitting.

The man sitting on the other side of Middle Man - Outside Man - asked Middle Man about the call after the latter got off the phone. When I figured out the two men didn't know each other, I thought that was kind of presumptuous. Then I remembered I was only thinking about Iraq because of the phone call that wasn't for me. But I stayed in the audience and told myself to focus on my stacks.

Middle Man explained to Outside Man that yes, the thrust of the call was about someone in uniform not agreeing with the War on Terror / Occupation of Iraq. Outside Man said he could empathize because it was an unjust war. Middle Man definitely could not empathize; if you're going to collect a paycheck for being a soldier, some days, you might have to fight.

I looked up into the back of Middle Man's head. It was salt and pepper. He might have been in his 50s. Outside Man had a white beard and might have been older. I looked down again.

Middle Man said the United States deposed a tyrant. Outside Man said the bloodshed was all about oil. He said if he was an Iraqi, he'd want to blow up Americans too. Middle Man wondered aloud if Outside Man had heard of 9/11.

I thought about New Yorkers being crushed, and dead Iraqis in bloody pajamas. Then I looked out onto Market Street through the caf/ glass. At a table on the sidewalk, two burly guys were playing chess. Two other guys watched those guys and then a woman with a stroller weaved through.

In my notebook I wrote "Crown Hill" on a piece of paper but didn't elaborate, so when I referred to the note later, it was meaningless.

Outside Man was saying President Bush was the only tyrant that needed overthrowing, and Middle Man said he supported the government and if Outside Man didn't like it, he could leave (the country, not the coffee shop).

Then Middle Man asked if Outside Man had a job.

I thought about my job and the coffee I couldn't really afford, and the bran muffins, making me fat.

Outside Man wanted to know what that question had to do with Iraq. Middle Man wanted to know why Outside Man had butted into a private conversation anyway.

And then I saw myself; sitting in the corner of an empty caf/ with the conflict of my time ricocheting off the walls. It was like I was stranded on a life raft with two men who fought over which way to row, while I sat in a corner, absorbed reading the manifest of a ship that sank the night before.

Was this Rebekah's news? Should I be writing this down? - I actually wrote that sentence on my notepad. Sure, kid, write it all down, an imaginary editor might say, pointing a slobbery cigar.

Write it down and keep writing and fill up the editorial hole that is a newspaper because there's one place you don't want to be - in the presence of an empty white page that sits between history and the next edition. Left to its own devices, you never know what might fill it.

Then the argument ended. As he left, Outside Man gave me a long glance. I went back to the office carrying more stacks than when I left. But there were new emails waiting and I was able to give the feeling the slip.