Morning Coffee

I don’t dislike the cafe, but it isn’t exactly my favorite place to be in. The bustling people getting their early coffee. The parents with wailing children fighting for a cut in the line. A police man was impatiently waiting in line. The barista’s efforts to make coffee as fast as possible as if their life depended on quelling the wrath of demons. It’s pure chaos. Which means it should be the perfect place for me to think of a new concept for the book I’m writing. Chaos tends to be a perfect theme for writing for some reason, or at least, I think so.

I kept thinking about something to write while looking at the door. I felt the light of my laptop glare at me with an empty page in my writing app. There’s no bigger critic than this for a writer. This pressure is what eventually makes me fall onto writer’s block. I keep overthinking, and overthinking until I find myself spending hours in front of the computer without writing anything. I have my earbuds on but I’m not actually listening to anything. Which makes it easier to eavesdrop on conversations for the sake of grasping inspiration. You hear all kinds of things in a place like this. Divorces, first dates, gossip, all kinds of conversations, which helps when writing dialogue and thinking up stories. I kept listening to see if a conversation piqued my interest, that is, until a burly man sat in the table next to me. He looked at me briefly, noticed my earphones and continued to talk through his phone.

“Are the arrangements in order?” the burly man said. This sounds interesting.

“Ok, make sure everything runs smoothly. We can’t afford mistakes.” He said in a faint voice. He was right next to me, so I could hear him clearly.

I was wondering what exactly he could be talking about. Was he organizing a wedding? Was he a football coach? It could honestly be anything; he was being very vague. I needed more info to grasp ideas. He started to talk lower, so I decided to concentrate all of my attention on him without being obvious.

“Advance on position. You are clear to engage” he said and hung up.

“Engage?” I caught myself saying aloud. Just then two men walked into the café with rifles and began blasting at the counter and then the rest of the café all the way to the back. The two baristas leaped to the floor. Screaming and panic erupted within the café as I pushed my table to the floor to provide cover.

“WHAT THE HELL!” I caught myself mid-scream and instinctively pushed the table towards the entrance. I looked next to me and the burly man was gone. He was heading towards the counter.

I froze, I did not know what exactly to do, yet I knew I had to move if I wanted to survive. The men were frantically looking for something near the counter. One of them was trying to open the door to the office, which was behind the barista counter. It looked as if the baristas locked themselves in there.

Next to the counter, lay on the floor was the cop that was waiting in line. It looks like that first line of fire caught him. I checked to see if the guys with the rifles were looking this way but they were not. One was checking the bathrooms which were close to the entrance, and the other was helping the burly man open the door to the office.

I moved swiftly but silently towards the police officer and took his handgun. It’s not like he was going to need it now. I checked the chamber and saw that it was loaded. I removed the safety and cocked it as slowly and silently as possible. Just then the guy checking the bathrooms came out.

“HEY, WE GOT A LIVE ONE!” He screamed as he shot at me. I quickly dove towards the flipped table.

“I got ‘im.” He said as I laid motionless. He walked towards me to confirm the kill. Gleaned at me quickly and kept walking to the back of the café.

“Fuck” I whispered. I’ll actually have to kill this guy. But did I have to? I could just lay there motionless.

Just then the guy began to fire at the corpses in the back. “Gotta make sure they’re dead.” He kept muttering to himself.

“Fuck” I whispered again. Just then I reached the gun which I hid under me and aimed at the guy’s head without raising suspicion.

BANG.

The guy fell back hard. I put the safety on and lay dead again.

“WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT?” one of the rifle men ran to the other guy. “FUCK, WHAT THE FUCK, WHO KILLED KENNY?” He said as he started to sob.

“There’s someone still alive, obviously” the burly man said as he cocked a handgun. He said as he kept trying to pry the door open. The other man just kept weeping while on his knees. It seems the one I shot was his brother. Just the other one left. I gripped the gun and aimed it slowly at the guy’s head.

“HEY!” The burly man saw me and stepped on my hand until I let go of the gun. “Stop sobbing you idiot! You want revenge? SHOOT HIM ALREADY!” He screamed at the sobbing man. In a fit of rage, he grabbed the rifle and ran while cocking it.

“NOW” I felt myself scream out as I bit the burly man’s leg, and he fell forward. I put him on a chokehold as the sobbing man shot.

“YOU MORON” The burly man began to cough blood. I took his handgun and shot the weeping man on the head. They both dropped to the floor.

I looked at the burly man. He honestly didn’t look dead to me. I checked the chamber. Still had a bullet in there. So, I shot him in the head for good measure. I threw the handgun to the floor and walked towards the office door.

I started to knock. “You can come out, they’re dead now” I said. Why was I so comfortable saying that after killing three men? Was this natural to me? Why didn’t I hesitate?

“Order 988 ready for you, sir!” The barista said as I woke up from my daydream.

“Oh, thank you” I said as I looked around. People were still fighting for coffee on the line. The burly man next to me was now enjoying a stack of pancakes.

I sipped my coffee, wiped my hands, and began to type the story, as I saw it on my head.