Frank - Part One

A short story about an elderly barista and his customers.

Hi babies, this is the first part of a short story I’ve been writing for a while that I’d like to publish here periodically. I recommend this is a bedtime read, just before you go off for a kip. Get tucked up and give it a read? Night night x

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There is a coffee shop five miles from a motorway that takes people into the city. It exists roughly as much as everything else, maybe a little more or less. Most people don’t know it’s there, which maybe makes it less real in the grand scheme of all known things but even more important to the people who go there. It was originally built around a small town, since abandoned. Cut off by a big road that’s slightly closer to the sky and a shift in the economy. The houses wrinkled by age, frowning. In spring, birds that nest in the softened wood all appear at once like a parade for frustrated commuters below, or a mirage for those not quite paying attention. The town has retained an economy of sorts; cats eat birds that eat bugs that eat dirt that eats us. 

Trees were planted that, years later, upend or tilt the tombstones of once important people. Wind chimes tap together from branches. Birds perch and whistle back at the chimes, conversations, maybe an argument or two. Somewhere amongst this noise a kettle hisses, toast pops and a cash register shucks coins back and forth in their coffins. Frank shuffles between these stations with very small steps. Grown accustomed to the small surface area of the shack, Frank has learned to ration his footfall to make journeys seem longer. In his old age, he thinks it is more graceful to lose time than to save it.

A small, woollen knot of a lady seems to be talking to Frank, though the hiss of the coffee machine cuts her slightly short. “Sorry I- one sugar wasn’t it? Yes. What were you saying?” This lady, who cannot be tall enough to ride many conventional roller coasters, adjusts a scarf away from her face and laughs. “It’s funny. For months before he passed, my husband would sit with his dinner and read the newspaper obituaries to me, out loud most nights. I think he felt very fragile after the surgery. He wanted to see if people would write about him fairly. Whether anyone gets truly represented by other people or if we are…I don’t know, reinvented in a way that helps those we’ve left behind”. Contemplating this for a moment, Frank unknowingly stirs a sugar cube into scarf lady’s coffee that has somehow sealed a fruit fly into its complexity. As the sugar dissolves, the fly spins clockwise and then counter-clockwise, pressed fast against the spoon like a carnival ride.

“How did your husband decide whether the obituaries were true or not?” Frank asks, content with the amount of stirs applied to the coffee. The lady pauses with a look that suggests she’d never really thought of it that way. “…I’d never really thought of it that way” she replies, just as a gentle gust of wind slaps her scarf back into her face. Adjusting it again, the pair pause for a moment, Frank unsure whether he’d just insulted the habits of her late husband. The scarf attacks again and its host begins to laugh hysterically, as if her husband is directing the wind personally out of embarrassment. “He just-I mean he always seemed so sure! He’d say something like ‘dedicated father? they were separated!’ and I’d nod along…what a pair of fools we were”. Her laughter gives way to a quieter chuckle that sounds more like remorseful nostalgia. A sadness that stems from being grateful for a memory rather than wishing it was never made. The only kind of sadness you should hope to experience, once you accept that the emotion is inevitable.

The lady shuffles off to a bench nearby which is surrounded by a mass of well-fed pigeons, clearly wise to her generosity. Frank watches her and ponders on whether pigeons gossip like we do, then shudders at the thought. Frank is very much a gossip. Making coffee is an exhausting profession, full of aches and hidden corners to sweep and machines that hiss for no reason and Frank is not a young man but still he loves gossip. The thought of a well-connected gaggle of winged gossipers is a death sentence to a man like Frank, a man who has a lifetime of half-secrets, half-truths and sexy rumours to throw around like breadcrumbs. A successful gossiper maintains their archive by surrounding themselves with people who are good at keeping secrets. 

Frank leaves this thought near the sink and notices the lady has disappeared. A few pigeons remain, reminiscing. Adjusting lenses, Franks eyes move away from where she stood, taking in the landscape around him. It’s one of those late autumn days where the sun is uninterrupted by clouds, doing just about enough to stave off a chill but not enough to stop the leaves from falling. Collecting underneath the vast helm of an oak tree nearby, leaves are being disturbed by something underneath them. Erratic tremors displace the rusty orange leaves which then resettle in more or less the same place. Frank assumes the busy work of the neighbourhood stray, an old gent with wiry fur and a crooked leg who makes a living off the empathy of a certain park barista. It would be fairly premature for the pooch to be making the rounds though as it was too early for dinner time. 

Frank walks over to investigate, leaving a teabag in a steaming mug of water which hindsight will tell us has made the tea too strong. Tentatively approaching the bundle, Frank hesitates, knowing his stray comrade doesn’t like surprises. Before Frank can bend down, two legs spring outwards in a shape that resembles the final third of a somersault. Frank pauses, allowing the legs to reconvene with the body, resuming its typical form. A small boy emerges from the leafy mass, shaking off leaves and dried clumps of mud, oblivious to the twigs that have taken up residence in his knotted brown hair. The boy does not take long to recover. He punches Frank in the balls as hard as he can, before running away into the trees that circle the coffee shack.

• End of part one.