Note to self...

...write a short story, or at least a character sketch, around this passage from Aharon Appelfeld's The Iron Tracks.

Meanwhile, his buffet is meager, and the customers are few. Once his young wife breathed life into the place, but since her sudden death he has aged. He neglects the buffet and sits by the window most of the day, smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee.

Brief and plainly written, yet with so much hidden depth.