PUBLIC MARKS from jeanruaud with tag shortstory

"Later, after the men in jumpsuits had driven up and begun digging the hole, Stevick would remember that the guy on the bench beside him had been gazing puzzledly into the cone of his large coffee and had tried to interest him in the question of whether the café’s brew aftertasted of soap or not. This day was gray, with heavy portents of rain."

[a short story, free, from Jeff VanderMeer, yes!]

short story

Selected examples of SF short stories from the journal Nature (Ted Chiang, Charles Stross...)