NASHVILLE, TN — A 31-year-old man sparked widespread concern at a Brentwood coffee shop Tuesday after sitting alone for nearly two hours reading a physical book with no headphones, no laptop, and no visible phone, prompting three separate wellness checks from strangers and one from a barista.

Derek Paulson, a logistics coordinator, reports he was simply reading Gilead by Marilynne Robinson when a woman at the next table leaned over to ask if he was “waiting for someone” and whether his “app” was working. A second patron offered him a phone charger unprompted. A third took a photo of him and posted it to a local Facebook group under the caption “Anyone know this man? He seems lost.”

“I wasn’t doing anything unusual,” said Paulson, 31, who admits he has owned the book for four years and only started reading it after his Wi-Fi went out. “I turned the pages with my hands. People kept flinching.”

“He just sat there. No scrolling, no earbuds, no nothing. Just… looking at the paper. It was honestly hard to watch.”

Barista Chloe Merchant, 24, said she performed the wellness check “out of an abundance of caution” after Paulson went eleven minutes without checking his phone. “We’re trained to notice when something seems off,” she said. “That seemed off.”

The Facebook post has since received 212 comments, 47 of which are people asking for the book title.

At press time, Paulson had finished the chapter, sat quietly for a moment staring out the window, and caused a neighboring table to call 911.