The Coffee Shop

In Seattle, just outside a coffee shop on a corner (for there is a coffee shop on every corner), a rocker dude waits for his ride. Sex, drugs, and rock n roll had nothing on this guy and he winks at every passing miniskirt. A chick in a grey sweater and a green beret walks with a notebook in her hands and a pen between her teeth. He doesn’t wink at her and she doesn’t care. She steps into the coffee shop and orders a mocha with cherry and extra hot. She sits on a window sill and watches the world go by and all of the faces she never cares to meet. Bright fortes and quiet harmonies bring the piano to life in a weird mixture of jazz, reggae, and the blues . The player’s salt and pepper hair hangs in strings under his beanie as his fingers grace the keys with a master’s proficiency. His teeth flash in the light from the window and his crow’s feet speak of a jolly nature. A young man with thick-rimmed specks sits at one of the tables under the quirky spiral hanging lamps, studying a theory of actual reality written by a 19 year old kid. He pushes his glasses up on his nose and is momentarily distracted by a young lady watching him intently from the faux-mahogany counter with her cappuccino shifting from hand to hand because of her absent-minded blunder of not grabbing a cup-sleeve. She’s seen him around campus and usually watches him from the 2nd story window in the library. A man comes out of the restroom and orders a black coffee and glances at the Seattle Times muttering something about fascism and blueberry muffins under his breath. The barista serves the man his coffee and looks around the room. He never closes until the chick in the sweater is ready to leave because she is always the first to get here and always the last to leave. And he knows she always orders a mocha with cherry and extra hot.

©Lunnette Nyx