These flamin’ people. Standing in line. Shuffling, waddling, consuming.
Taking up oxygen.
Bloody mouth-breathers. Why can’t they all just vanish? If there was a way to have just one Thanos ‘snap’. Just one go. Promise.
Every day these grey folk come here. Like clockwork, only less reliant on precision gears and cogs and more reliant on the prospect for a workable travel infrastructure. A rarity in and of itself.
She knew some of them by name. Made idle chit chat when required. But mostly it was busy, busy, busy, places to go people to scheme.
It was amazing the strata of social circles that came to buy over-priced beverages in stylish but impractical cups and beakers. Mugs for the mugs they said after opening hours.
She hadn’t always hated things this hatefully. Idealistic, young and impressionable she’d been at the outset. But you get to see the worst of people in the early hours. It wears you down. The Night Owls and The Early Birds, getting home, going to work.
Marking territory.
There were a few of her favourites. Caramel Latte at 6.32am. Young man. Permanent 5 O’Clock shadow. Handsome. Always dishevelled. He was polite and shy. Unaware that he was lighting up her life a little every time he shone in her direction. Perhaps in a different life. A different time.
7.27am was the double espresso. She was pretty but buttoned up. Prim and proper. But she read whichever name tag was worn that day, even when the name was a man’s and enquired how everyone was feeling. Even false caring was better than not caring at all. The effort to pretend to give a shit.
Admirable.
But for every one of these, there were a dozen CoffZoms. Horrible spluttering spheres of self-importance. No eye-contact. Grunts and growls.
8.02am was such a one. Be-suited and bespectacled. Besotted with his own brilliance. Apparently. His was a skinny, no cream, double roast and little bit of hazel nut. An extra dash of nose waste wiped round the rim.
8.23am was a rusher, no time for queuing, no airs and graces. Elbows out, eyes forward. She pushed and shoved and barged and fidgeted. Waved her hand to draw attention, but her presence was signalled 30 secs before her arrival, due to the wafts of expensive perfume that she’d wallowed in Cleopatra-like that morning.
The routine had made her wary. The routine of the routine meaning everything was prototherian and unconscious. Her subconscious operating the ‘in mind’ world and the ‘real world’ HUD on auto-pilot.
Today’s name tag: Caroline.
Systems check:
Orbicularis oculi? Operational.
Levator labii superioris? Requires maintenance.
Zygomaticus major and minor? Minor stress damage.
Risorius? 65% power.
Levator anguli oris? All systems go.
‘Hi, sir, what can I get you?’
