Observations of The Urban Spaceman 
The Coffee Shop
There was something a little different about the newest coffee shop in town. Something odd that Mia couldn’t quite put her finger on.
Maybe it was the fact that the front door was permanently locked. A small sign in the marbled-glass window asked patrons to enter via the back door, which could only be accessed by walking down the alley at the end of the shop row.
Maybe it was that.
Or perhaps it was that the owner, a sweet old Turkish man called Berat, always knew what she wanted to order even before she’d spoken. “Ah,” he would say with a smile, “an espresso for you today,” on the days she’d stayed up late the night before to work on her research paper. Or “Your mocha will be ready in just a moment,” on the days when she craved an extra chocolate hit.
Perhaps it was that.
It could’ve been the fact that every time Mia visited the coffee shop, the exact same people were sitting at the tables, every time. The back room was always full, and it was always the same faces. And that was the really weird thing. The same faces… but not always the same bodies. As if somebody had mashed them all together, old faces on young bodies, dark faces on pale bodies, female faces on male bodies… Eventually, she put it down to a side-effect from the one time she’d given LSD a try at a college party. She knew she’d come to regret that, one day.
It could’ve been that.
There was something a little different about the newest coffee shop in town, but they also made the best coffee Mia had ever tasted, so she adopted a policy of not asking questions and pretending everything was just fine. She smiled at Berat, drank her coffee, and left feeling in a much better mood every time.
It never occurred to her that the reason there was something a little different about the newest coffee shop in town was because it wasn’t actually a coffee shop at all.
It’s been a long time since I’ve written much of anything, so I eased myself in with a Write Now flash fiction prompt from Today’s Author. Not much of a story; more of a setting. Feel free to continue my story, if you like!
Glorken
The Urban Spaceman
Observations of The Urban Spaceman 
Ooh, it may just be a setting but this is a suspensefully good setting! I’m intrigued about this coffee shop that is not a coffee shop. What is it then? Secret-not-so-secret HQ of an alien mob? Doorway to a parallel dimension? Twilight zone?
All in all, a great way to ease back into things, TUS.
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Thank you! 🙂 I haven’t decided what the coffee shop really is yet. In the first version, it was a gathering place for a community of djinn-like mythical figures… but I got bored working out the minutiae so decided it would be a mystery for now 😉
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I hear the creaking of your finger joints, the stretching of your elastic mind snapping back in place… Do continue.
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I’m pretty sure that creaking sound is the gears in my brain trying to work again… apologies if it’s distracting! 😉
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I enjoyed this.Well done. That it was inconclusive didn’t bother me. The set up had magic
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Thanks John… sometimes I think lack of conclusion leaves more to the imagination. Or gives me room to end it at a later date 😉
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…it was a robot brothel in disguise.
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LOL… do I foresee a robot brothel in your next horror story? A tale of automated hands gone murderous on unfortunate items of anatomy? 😛
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“not asking questions and pretending everything was just fine….” this is kinda what the entire world is doing today.
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It’s been a few years! Glad you’re back and I hope you are doing well! Nice post!
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Thanks George! It has indeed been some time. I’m doing well – better now that I’m back – and hope to catch up on what you’ve been doing soon too 🙂
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It’s been a few years. Glad you’re back, hope you are well. Enjoyed this post!
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I’d say it’s a good start to a story. Give yourself time to get warmed up, and then you can take it further!
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Well, it’s made me want to go to Costa on my way home. Though I don’t know whether that’s a good thing…
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I came over via the link at Today’s Author. I really liked this and would definitely love to see more of this story!
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Thanks Rob. I might use the setting for future stories or poems, but for now I’m just trying to flex my creative muscles without straining myself 😉
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