A Perfectly Ordinary Coffee Shop

A Perfectly Ordinary Coffee Shop

Oliver Charlton

Hot chocolate with marshmallows and cream

“I just can’t understand” said the girl, gazing out the coffee shop window, watching the rain drops run down the window pane, “where all this belief in the supernatural comes from.”

            “I know what you mean” replied her companion, stirring his own steaming hot chocolate with a twirl of his finger, which in turn turned the spoon, despite a good inch between his digit and the utensil. “It seems idiotic that in this day and age, people are still wasting their time with monsters and the impossible.”

            “It’s as if—” the  girl paused, swatting away a giggling pixie, which was trying to take off with her sugar sachet. “It’s as if,” she resumed, “they simply can’t accept that we live in a perfectly ordinary world, and that there’s no room for all this made-up nonsense in our modern times.”

            “It’s a symptom of the infantilising of society,” replied the boy, his spoon clattering against the side of his cup, as the sudden materialization of a patron from thin air behind him broke his concentration.

            “True, true…” said the girl, lifting her coffee to her lips. Then, finding it had cooled a little too much, set it down gently upon its saucer. Then, she let a flame from her fingertips licks against the side of her cup. “It’s as if our whole generation never really grew up.”

            “I mean I could understand it,” said the boy, “back in the olden days, before we had explanations for all the perfectly natural phenomena around us. But in this day and age, it’s just pitiful.”

            “I just don’t get why they bother. Why go see an old gypsy for a supposedly magical healing crystal when you can just transmute your own bezoar at home.”

            “Yeah, yeah,” agreed the boy. “It’s not as if you can’t just Google the runes anytime you want.”

            They both looked away from each other as the conversation lulled. The irregular beat of rain drops against glass accentuating the silence.

            “Having said that,” the girl said, almost to herself, “I’d very much like it if there were such a thing as horses.”

  

About the Author

Oliver Charlton is a Yorkshire resident who writes for fun and the occasional rejection letter.    (Note from editor: not rejection letter this time!)

Published June 7 2016