There is something fundamentally wrong with Earnest getting his butt temp done with a Hello Kitty thermometer…
BTW, he’s fine. Quick checkup and nail clipping…

Missing are the coffees and my breakfast sandwich. Sarah thought the coffee cake was too sweet. I liked it except for the fruit filling. At Cafe Zoka in Snoqualmie…

In case you never remembered, I started a loose collection of writing about the people in a coffee shop and the couple that own it…

It’s called Ophelia’s Cafe…

It was to be a hipster romance, with the couple owning the shop being a solid unchanging rock amidst the turmoil of the fast paced inner-city and it’s very odd inhabitants. Not sure if I want to keep it that way though. Here, in 1st draft, the unnamed male owner reveals a past indiscretion…

Brie came in the door mid day with sleep still in her eyes and a sun-ray smile. Part of the Artists Co-Op down the street, her clothes reflected her mood for the day. Today she was punk cabaret with a shortened distressed gown, visible stockings and garters with a tri-corner hat that brought back Adam Ant songs to me.

She was a prettier version of Amanda Palmer. A comment that if spoken aloud would of instantly caused them to shun me, as beauty is internal, or a process that is created. An easy way to see the world when all of them were young and beautiful. She was, of course, perpetually broke, and perpetually rich of imagination. She ordered an americano- the cheapest on the menu. As she spoke, a perfume of patchouli and sweat roiled from her body in invisible fractals.

Staring into nothingness, I went to the La Marzocco and whipped her up a quad venti extra vanilla breve latte. More to see her milk white thigh tap incessantly at the table than due to any altruism or respect for the arts.

I once tasted her mouth. Isabella had already gone home for the night. A wild night her “troupe” played the coffee shop. Even though she had been drinking almond italian sodas all night she tasted of cotton candy. And youth. Glorious, vibrant, unobtainable youth.

My cock immediately grew hard during the unprompted kiss before they called her onto the stage (really just a few sheets of raised plywood) at the front of the coffee shop. I looked into her eyes and saw freedom. She smiled and ran forward. They played until way past closing. Her ethereal smile and odd lyrics carrying the night.

To her it was nothing. A good luck charm. Something performed at every show. Like someone saying, “Break a leg!”. To me it was a brick wall around my heart. Or a tidal wave of lost opportunities. To me it crushed me. To her it gave her an instant of strength.

I still feel her lips when she walks in the door. She feels hunger, or thinks of a warm coffee. Maybe the nice owner giving her a free scone.

Do we celebrate talent? Or the unlikely intersection of beauty and creativity?

Either way, life moves on. The pain only real to the observer…