"The Sadness of Detail" by Jonathan Carroll

...I noticed a number of photographs he had spread out on the table in front of him. Most of the pictures were of my family and me.

A woman takes a break at her favorite coffee shop before heading home to her husband and children. While enjoying a glass of wine and humming to herself, she is confronted by a mysterious man who seems to know things about her that nobody could possibly know. It seems that the woman has a talent, and the strange man has a proposition for her...one that could completely change the woman's future. But who is the man who calls himself "Thursday", and what does he gain from the woman's talent?

Jonathan Carroll quickly draws the reader into the world of his main character, using the setting of a quaint coffee shop as a resting place for a woman who is exhausted of running daily errands. The pacing of the story is perfect, and the "otherworldly" aspects of the tale are introduced in a believable way. The final few paragraphs, which explain the motivation for Thursday and what effect the woman's ability could have on the world as a whole, describe a unique perspective on a subject that many pages have been written on over the course of history.

"You know the sadness of detail, using your phrase. That is what makes you capable of transcendence."

"The Sadness of Detail" can be found in the anthology Poe's Children: The New Horror, which was edited by Peter Straub.