Bean Inspired

The last dregs lay cooling in the bottom of the cup, their heat and appeal disappearing second by second. Harris traced his finger through the brown foam lining the sides above, creating a meandering wave around the edge. Angling the cup and slowly spinning it on its rim, he marvelled at the way the remaining coffee clung to the boundaries marked by the foam; rising and falling easily with the lines already made, but refusing to tread new ground of its own.

                The words always eluded him at home, but there was something about this place that just seemed to engage his mind. Sat in this chair, fabric worn thin on the arms, laptop resting on the rustic wooden table before him, oversized, white, ceramic mug of coffee next to it, all his thoughts seemed better, more worthy, more deserving of print than they did elsewhere. The atmosphere cultivated some kind of creative spirit in him, he couldn’t explain it; some kind of psychological thing, some idiosyncrasy on his part, something in the air, maybe something in the coffee, who knew? But there was a magic here that couldn’t be denied.

                Multiple television scripts sold to Hollywood and enough of a novel to get him a publishing contract had all been written from this very spot. Harris had long ago saved enough to move out of town, to find somewhere half-decent closer to the industry, but things seemed to be going just fine right where he was now.

                He hammered a few more words into his laptop, smiling all the while because he knew that they were the right ones. He drained the last of his cup before standing up and making his way to the bar.

                “Hey you,” Wendy the barista said as he approached.

                “Hey yourself.”

                “Good day?” she asked. “Good progress?” she set the grinder going as she spoke, they were long past his order needing to be spoken aloud.

                He glanced briefly over at his spot. “Always” he grinned.

                “Just had old Frank over here,” she said, nodding to the old man sat near the door. “He’s spent the last 20 minutes telling me all about his new shed design he just finished.” She mimed a yawn.

                Harris took a closer look and saw that there was drawing paper draped across an entire table and off each side, the edges trailing to the floor. Frank himself was sat back in his seat, trying to look at all of it at once, an expression of pure pride plastered across his face.

                “Apparently he does all of his new projects here, same as you.” She smiled devilishly. “That’ll be you one day if you don’t move your ass out of here.”

                “Hey, I don’t see anything wrong with that picture” he said. “I should be so lucky to still be creating at that age, even if it is only a shed.” He fixed her with his best gaze “Besides, I had no idea you were so keen to get rid of me.”

                “I’m not,” she met his gaze in kind. “I just think such a big shot shouldn’t stay cooped up here all his life.” The words big shot dripped with mockery.

                “Well I can hardly leave until you’re ready to come with me, can I?”

                Wendy laughed “Guess you are going to end up like Frank then. I’m not going anywhere.” She handed him his coffee.

                Harris accepted it and took a sip “Well I guess that makes two of us.”

                The light was fading below the window’s horizon, creating silhouettes out of the empty chairs that stood before it. There wasn’t really anyone but Harris left in the shop now, just Colton, the owner, cleaning up for the night. Harris had been on a roll all day, and was trying to squeeze every last drop out of the time he had left before closing.

                “You’re always the last one out of here, you know that?” Colton said as he drew closer and started cleaning one of the tables beside Harris.

                “What can I say? I want to use every possible second.”

                “Hey I’m not complaining,” Colton said. “You and your coffee addiction are practically keeping me in business. But you can just continue at home, can’t you?”

                Harris shook his head “It wouldn’t be the same,” he said. “This is where I write best. Everything I’ve ever sold has been written in this chair.”

                “Is that right?” Colton moved to another table, continuing his slow orbit around Harris, doing his best to prolong the removal of his final customer. “I can’t believe I never knew that.”

                “Yeah,” Harris continued. “Don’t accuse me of going too Hollywood, but there’s an energy here, you know? Something creative. I’m not the only one that knows it either. Apparently Frank, that old guy, plans all of his building projects here.”

                “Yeah,” Colton said. “Wendy was telling me about that today.”

                “I’m telling you, there’s something here.” Harris continued typing as he spoke. “It’s a good thing everyone doesn’t know about this, the place would be flooded.”

                “Call me crazy, but I fail to see the problem with that.” Having finished every other table in the shop, he now moved over to Harris, cloth and disinfectant in hand. “Okay, it’s time to finish up. I’ve got shit to do.”

                “Alright,” Harris closed up his laptop. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

                “I know you will.”

                It was around 11:00am, approximately five days later when Harris walked into the shop to find someone sitting in his spot, typing furiously into a laptop, smiling unabashedly at the screen as they went. All around, everything else was relatively normal. All the regulars sat in their usual places. Denise and Barbara were at the counter facing the window, waiting out the time until the bar across the street opened at midday. Patrice was holding her millionth meeting at the table over by the potted plant, trying and failing to get anyone at all to invest in her idea about a nightclub for dogs. Frank was sat by the door again, poring intently over his shed blueprints.

                Wendy stood behind the bar, slumped forward over the counter with her arms supporting her. She was staring into nothing, waiting for any work at all to come along and temporarily relieve her of her boredom.

                “Hey,” Harris said as he approached. “Who’s that guy sitting in my chair?”

                Wendy lurched lethargically towards the coffee grinder, almost robotically beginning to complete the motions. “I don’t know,” she said. “And that’s not your chair either, anyone’s allowed to sit there.”

                “Oh come on, I always sit there!” he complained. “Everyone knows that’s where I sit.”

                “This is a public place,” she smirked. “Anyone can sit there, it’s not like it has your name on it.”

                “Can I pay to make that happen?”

                Wendy laughed aloud. “Why is it you haven’t moved to Hollywood yet? You’d fit in so well.”

                “No, I’m actually serious!” he laughed back at her as he spoke.

                “So am I,” she said. “They love putting names on chairs out there.”

                “I need that space to work,” Harris moaned. “It’s important to my livelihood.”

                “Jesus, don’t let Colton hear you say that. He’ll start charging you royalties.” Wendy handed him his coffee, bowing ceremoniously as he took it from her hands, her bored-shitless expression still glued to her face. “Besides, this has to be the first time this has ever happened to you. Don’t you think you’re overreacting?”

                “Fine,” Harris conceded. “But whilst it is happening, what do you expect me to do?”

                “Oh I don’t know, sit somewhere else maybe? Don’t tell me that none of our other chairs can do it for you?”

                “It’s not the same.”

                Wendy shook her head in exasperation. “Well it’s not like you’ve got much choice today, have you?”

                Harris stared out at the seating area and sighed miserably “…I guess.”

                “Oh my god!” Wendy was in disbelief. “You’re actually pathetic. Any sex appeal you ever had is just slipping right off you, I swear.”

                “I had sex appeal to begin with?”

                “Go and ask him to move if it bothers you that much!”

                Harris glanced over his shoulder at the guy sat in his chair “Don’t you think that’s a bit desperate?”

                “I think you’re past that question at this point, don’t you?”

                He looked at the chair again and let out another sigh “You’re right.” He steeled himself to walk over there, but as he made to leave, he turned back to Wendy for a second. “Seriously though, am I still sexy or…?”

                Wendy rolled her eyes “Go and get your chair back.”

                Harris felt infantile as he approached, like a child approaching a neighbour’s house to ask for their ball back. “Excuse me,” he began.

                The guy in front of him appeared not to have heard. He didn’t look up from his laptop, continuing to type at a blistering pace, his self-satisfied smile still stuck to his face.

                Harris tried again “Excuse me!” he said, louder this time.

                The guy snapped his head up, recognition instantly coming over him. “Oh my god, it’s you!” he said. “I mean, I knew this was the place, but I had no idea you’d actually be here!”

                Harris was confused “I’m sorry, what?”

“Dark Void!” the guy exclaimed. “You wrote the pilot, right?”

                “Oh!” Understanding washed over him. “Yeah, that was me.”

                “Oh man, I love that show!” the guy gushed. He looked only a couple of years younger than Harris, 24, 25 maybe. “I’m Mike, by the way.” He extended a hand.

                Harris shook it. “Well thanks Mike, it’s really cool to meet a fan.”

                “Oh man no, it’s so cool to meet you. I was excited just to write in the spot you wrote in, but this is even better!”

                “Well I don’t know about…” he trailed off as something occurred to him. “Wait, how do you know I write here?”

                “Oh I got one of these flyers, you know?” Mike rummaged through his pockets and pulled out a crumpled piece of paper. “I thought you knew about them…” he said when Harris failed to recognise what he had produced.

                Harris snatched it from his hands.

Are you a creative type looking for inspiration?

Check out Dark and Bitter, the cosy coffee shop on East Street with armchairs comfortable enough to work from all day, and strong espresso that’ll really get those creative juices flowing.

Harris Ryan, writer for Dark Void and Vested Interest swears by it. He says:

“There’s a magic to this place, everything I’ve ever sold was written here.”

Come by today and create the thing you were born to create.

                The next time Wendy looked up from studying her favourite spot on the counter, Harris was waiting for her.

                “This is an interesting line of promotion you’ve decided to go with,” he held out the flyer for her to see.

                “Hey don’t look at me,” she raised her hands in defence. “That was all Colton, I had nothing to do with it.

                “Right, and you just never thought to tell me?”

                Wendy smiled slyly “And why would I do that?”

                “Because…!” he was indignant. “This is like a distinct violation of my rights … or something.”

                “That…” she said, “…sounds like a matter that’s between you and the manager of Dark and Bitter, it’s not my place to talk about. I’m but a lowly drone in the corporate machine.”

                “Well you know what else, lowly drone?” he said. “This flyer doesn’t say anything about where I sit in the room. Someone must have pointed out my exact seat when that guy came in this morning.” He glowered at her pointedly.

                She remained tight-lipped “Guess someone must have.”

                “You said you didn’t know why he was there.”

                “I lied.” She was the picture of glee.

                He took a breath to calm himself. “I need to talk to Colton,” he said.

                “He’s busy right now, can I take a message?”

                Harris sighed in exasperation, then just opened up the countertop and walked behind the bar.

                “Hey you can’t do that!” Wendy moved to block his path. “That’s cheating! It’s no fun when you cheat.”

                He brushed past her and barged through the door into the back room.

                Colton was sat at his desk, with an oversized jar of muffins that he had stolen from the bar countertop resting in his lap. At the sound of the door crashing open, he dropped the muffin he was holding, sending showers of crumbs cascading down the front of his shirt. “Wendy, what the hell?” he shouted before looking up and seeing that it was Harris. “Hey you can’t be here! Where’s Wendy?” he started calling for her whilst hastily brushing the crumbs of off his shirt and trying to set the jar of muffins down on the floor.

                “Colton what the hell is this?” Harris thrust the flyer forward.

                Wendy appeared at the door “I tried to stop him, but he got right past me.”

                “Christ, what do I pay you for?”

                “Oh I don’t know,” she replied. “Making coffee?”

                “Well go make some for me then!”

“Guys! Can I…” Harris began.

                “Shh!” Wendy and Colton silenced him in unison.

                “I’m not your servant, you know” she directed at Colton.

                “I pay you!” Colton was incredulous. “And if you want me to keep paying you, you’ll get me a damn coffee.”

                Wendy gaped as she struggled to come up with a rebuttal, but eventually she begrudgingly accepted defeat. “...Fine!” she said as she turned and stormed out of the room.

                Colton turned to Harris “Right,” he said. “Now that that’s taken care of, what is it I can help you with?”

                “The flyer!” Harris was turning red. “What the hell is this thing?”

                Outside the door, the grinder could be heard being yanked angrily into use. “That looks like it’s part of our new promotion strategy,” he said. “Why? What do you mean?”

                “I mean, when exactly was it that I became your official spokesperson?” Harris replied. “Apparently I must have missed the meeting.”

                “Would you like to be our official spokesperson?”

                “That depends,” Harris said. “Can I get free coffee for life?”

                Colton thought it over for a second “…No,” he decided. “I can give you one free muffin though, right here, right now.” He pulled up the jar and set it on the desk in front of him.

                Harris shook his head “Why are you doing this?”

                “Well you said you didn’t want anyone else to know about this place,” Colton said. “So I thought, Hey, more people should know about this place.”

                “Well … fine” Harris held up the flyer again. “But can’t you do it without using me?”

                “No worries,” Colton said. “Turns out you’re not that famous anyway. I’ve already got a new design that’s going to hit the streets tomorrow.”

                “Okay great,” Harris awkwardly straightened his shirt. “Glad that’s sorted then.” He made to leave the office but then he remembered something. “As a side note, could I like … buy the rights to my seat in the room, so that no one else can sit there but me?”

                Colton laughed. “For ten-thousand dollars, sure! I’ll draw up a contract right now.”

                Harris was defeated. “Never mind,” He turned and walked out the door, past Wendy who was now coming back in, holding a cup of coffee that had very obviously been spat in. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said as he left the office.

                “I know.” Colton replied.

                It was 6:52am the next morning when Harris rounded the corner of East Street, a full 8 minutes before the shop was due to open. Yesterday had been terrible, Harris had watched his word count limp along at a pitiful pace, all the while hearing the furious clicking of Mike’s keyboard from the other side of the room; a machine gun that never ran out of ammo, Harris’s productivity squarely in its crosshairs.

                He crossed the street and kept moving at a brisk pace, the shop was only a couple of blocks away now. In the distance, he could make out someone standing outside getting ready to open up the shop. Perfect, he thought, right on time. But to his dismay, as he got closer he realised that the person was not an employee, but in fact another customer.

                “Hey man!” said Mike. “Couldn’t wait to get started either, huh? Man, I had such a good day yesterday I just needed to get back here, you know?”

                Harris felt his heart drop into his stomach “…Yeah, totally.”

                “You really picked a good spot,” he continued. “The words were just flowing through me. I don’t think I’ve ever written that fast before.”

                “Yeah, it’s pretty great.” Harris was despondent.

                “Looks like we’re going to be racing for it every morning then, huh?” he gave Harris a playful nudge.

                “Looks like.”

 “Better luck tomorrow, I guess. Early bird catches the worm, right?”

                Wendy appeared from around a corner, fishing the keys out of her bag as she walked to the door. She stopped when she saw Harris “What are you doing here so early?”

                “Trying to catch a worm, apparently.”

                “…Right, well we don’t serve those,” she said. “We have muffins, if you’d like one.”

                “Only if you can promise me that Colton hasn’t run his hands all over them first.”

                “Well … we have coffee then.”

She unlocked the door and Mike immediately raced inside, nestling himself comfortably in Harris’s armchair, where he would remain for the rest of the day. She and Harris followed more slowly, heading straight to the bar to drown themselves in coffee.

                Harris’s strategy of arriving at 6:30am the next morning proved even more fruitless when he found himself face to face with not one, but five people already waiting outside, Mike standing proudly at the head of the pack.

                “Hey Harris!” he said. “Check this out. I was testing some new stuff at a reading last night, and all these people came up afterwards and told me how good it was. Now that has never happened before, I mean, like, ever. So I told them, it’s this place, right? Ever since I started coming here, it’s just been success after success. Now here they all are too.” He gestured to the other people with him. “Crazy right?”

                “You’ve been coming here for two days.”

                “I know!” He said. “It’s insane!”

                “It really, really is.” For once, Harris was in complete agreement.

                Wendy and Harris spent the day laying on the bar together, their heads next to each other whilst their feet stretched to opposite ends. Colton was too busy printing flyers to come in, so they were taking a few liberties.

                “Why did you have to tell him where I sit?” Harris moaned.

                “I don’t know this was going to happen, did I?” said Wendy. “He was gushing about you, it made me feel proud of you. I wanted to show you off, show him how well I knew you.”

                “You were proud of me?”

                “Well … yeah, of course. Why wouldn’t I be?”

                “Will you still be proud of me when I miss the publishing deadline for my novel, and I never book another contract again?”

                “Oh god no,” she said. “Thankfully though, I know I don’t have to worry about that happening.”

                Someone cleared their throat and leant over into Wendy’s field of vision, it was Patrice. The door could be heard closing as Cloud K-9’s latest potential investor briskly exited the shop.

                “Could I get a muffin?” she asked.

                Wendy dragged the jar towards her with her feet, before reaching in and throwing a muffin in the air for Patrice to catch. Patrice pulled out a $5, but Wendy wasn’t even looking at her, so eventually she just slid it back into her purse. “Any chance of a coffee?” she said.

                “Oh you can just go back there and do it,” Wendy flung an arm at the workstation. “It’s not that hard to figure out.” She focused on Harris again. “I’m telling you you’re overthinking it. Frank doesn’t sit where you do, and he still draws sheds like nobody’s business.”

                “He always sits in his spot though, and he always orders the same thing, right?” Harris said. “Everyone’s got their own process, their own rituals, you know? And now mine’s being disrupted.”

Unfortunately, Harris had no idea yet what disruption really looked like. A couple of weeks later and he was struggling to get a seat in the shop at all, let alone reclaim his old one. The twin barrage of Colton’s sudden entrepreneurial ingenuity and Mike’s ferocious campaign to share Dark and Bitter with the world had rendered the place almost unrecognisable.

You never would have thought that so many writers could inhabit the same space at once, the room was constantly filled with the click-clack of keys enthusiastically being struck. More than that though, designers, artists, musicians, anyone looking for a little inspiration started trickling into the shop one day after another. The sleepy little joint propped up by a few loyal regulars disappeared, to be replaced by a menagerie of creatively unemployed twenty-somethings that just needed to get their dream out there.

There were too many customers for just one barista to handle anymore, so Colton had been making more hires, and even increasing opening hours to handle the extra traffic. Harris wasn’t taking well to the influx of new employees. Half the time when he went to the bar, despite his best efforts, he would find himself being served by someone other than Wendy.

By far the worst change though was new the VIP area. The section towards the back where all the armchairs were had been cordoned off with a velvet rope, and there was now a $5 charge on grabbing one of the limited seats inside.

“What the hell is this?” Harris had said to Colton when it first went up.

“You know, I think the magic of this place is finally rubbing off on me.” Colton laughed. “This may be the best idea I’ve had in years.”

“I don’t even know what to say to this.”

“Hey, paying for seats was your idea, I’m just adapting it a little.”

The worst part wasn’t even that it was working extraordinarily well, it was that every day Harris was one of the idiots vying for the chance to fork over his cash and sit there, though for the meagre dribble of words each day there was gaining him, he really wasn’t sure why he kept paying.

Every single day, that asshole Mike was the first customer in and the last one out, and every single day, he chose for his throne the seat that used to belong to Harris. He was the star of the joint, constantly holding conversations with large portions of the room, promising collaborations, and even organising talent nights where people got to show off what they had produced here.

One night, Mike was able to convince Colton to hold a reading in the shop after hours. Although truth be told, there hadn’t been much convincing involved. Mike had suggested a $5 entry fee, and the rest was history.

Again, it wasn’t just the writers that showed. Plenty of the other new regulars all showed up for support too. In fact, by the time the event began, the place was full of pretty much everyone that would be there during the daytime.

Harris forced himself to go, to listen to what everyone else was creating and remind himself that he was perfectly capable of feats just as impressive, perhaps more so even. He just needed something to get himself out of this funk first.

The beginning of the night started pleasantly enough, there was some good stuff being read, not really a dud in the bunch, which was really impressive considering how amateur the vast majority of the participants were. Everyone in the room was supportive and appreciative of everyone else, but really they were all waiting for the headline act, the new hero of Dark and Bitter himself, Mike Schwarz.

He read three separate pieces back to back, each of them longer than the last, totalling to over an hour on stage. But that wasn’t even the real evil.

“Okay, so that’s me done, finally.” He winked knowingly at the audience. “I’m glad everyone came out tonight to support this and to support each other, and I’m sure we all know Colton back there is glad of the profits.” He laughed, as did his audience. “No, but seriously give the man a big round of applause, not only for agreeing to host this tonight, but for building this place for us all, where we can all come together and foster our creativity every day. Give it up!”

Behind the bar, Colton raised his hand to graciously accept praise, looking for all the world as if he actually gave a damn about fostering anything other than his own bank account.

“Whilst we’re all here, I’d like to take this opportunity to let everyone know that I just secured a publishing contract,” said Mike.

Congratulatory cheers went up from the audience.

“Thanks, thanks everyone. It means a lot, but I like to think this was a group effort, between all of us, you know? Special thanks of course to Colton, and also to someone else that comes here every day, but I don’t think a lot of you know him, and that’s a real shame because he’s one of the big reasons we’re all here. Harris, I know you didn’t have anything planned to read tonight, but if anyone knows how to harness the creative energy here to its maximum potential, it’s you. How about you get up here and show us all what a professional looks like?”

The crowd followed Mike’s gaze right to Harris, enveloping him in a blanket of expectant glares in a single instant.

“Come on,” Mike gestured towards the stage. “Come on up.”

Harris gingerly stood up from his seat “Uh…” he began. “I don’t have anything prepared.”

“You must have something,” Mike said. “You’re working on a novel, right? Why don’t you do something from that?”

“It’s not ready yet.”

“Oh come on, we’re all friends here,” Mike smiled enthusiastically. “We’ll be the judge of that.”

“No.” Harris was staunch in his reply.

“Oh come on man, don’t be such a spoilsport.”

“I said no.” Harris stood up straight, now returning the glares of the audience in kind. “I said I don’t have anything right now and I fucking meant it, you juvenile shit. Now if you’ll excuse me.” He made his best attempt at storming off, but was hampered by the process of having to pick his way through the rows tightly packed seating in order to go anywhere.

He almost left there and then, but a better thought came to him. Instead of walking to the door, he marched right up to the bar and stared down Colton. “I’d like to buy my chair back now.”

The next day, Harris walked in at gone 11:00am, but when he walked over to grab a place to sit, his old chair was waiting just for him. When he got to the velvet rope, the bouncer opened it up with no charge.

“Right this way sir,” the man said, leading him in to a chair that hadn’t stood unoccupied this late in the day for several weeks now. Harris sank into his old familiar spot and he was instantly at home. He ordered a coffee from the VIP waiter, opened up his laptop, and unleashed a flurry of words, at a velocity that visibly shook the dust out from under his keys. Mike sat somewhere in the corner, shooting him jealous looks all day, and each one only made Harris write faster. He was back.

“You’re such an idiot, I swear to god.” Wendy scolded him as she set the grinder going.

“What?” he said, shrugging nonchalantly.

“Ten-thousand dollars?!” she spluttered. “Are you fucking serious?”

“I’ve got my advance from the book,” Harris said. “It’s not a big deal.”

“Right, that’s why you adamantly refused to pay it to begin with.” She began making the latte art in his coffee, but instead of the usual delicate, flower shape, she carefully started pouring out what looked to be a middle finger into his drink. “You let that little wannabe get to your head, and now you’ve gone and been a fucking idiot and you know it.” She shoved the cup of coffee at him. “Here.”

Harris looked down at what had to be the first cup of coffee that had ever flipped someone off. “I don’t see it that way,” he said as he took the cup. “This is an investment in my future, and it’s already producing effective results.” He smiled sweetly at her. “Besides, a permanent seat right by my favourite girl? I’d give a lot more for that if I had to.”

Wendy faltered for a second, cheeks flushing, before mumbling. “If that’s the kind of sentimental bullshit you’re coming up with now, they’re going to drop your contract so fast you won’t know what happened.” The words were still venomous, but her eyes fell upon him more kindly. “Go and get writing then,” she said. “Let’s see that investment pay off.”

Harris may have been back to normal now, but the rest of the shop certainly was not. More people poured in every day, desperately searching for that inspiration that was now so famous among the town’s residents. Lines started forming outside at all hours of the day, and the journey to the door was slow progress. Nonetheless, the shop started to see ever weirder groups of people coming through its doors.

One day a group of people started rehearsing their play in the middle of the room.

“O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?” A girl cried. “Deny thy father and refuse thy name; or if thou wilt not, but be sworn…”

“Excuse me,” Harris interrupted. “What exactly are you doing?” He got up from his chair and walked over to the troupe.

“We’re rehearsing our play,” said Juliet. “We’re doing Shakespeare.”

“Yes, I can see that.” Harris said. “What I mean is, why are you doing it in a coffee shop?”

“This is where people come, right?” she said, now uncertain in herself. “When they want to do something creative?”

“It … it doesn’t really work like that. It’s more about, like, finding inspiration, you know? I’m not sure what you’re doing really fits.”

Juliet looked distinctly upset.

“Hey,” he said, trying to rescue things. “I love the theatre, I’m sure your show will be great. But surely there are better places to practice than a coffee shop. There are people working here.”

“I like them, Harris,” said a voice from the back.

Harris turned to see Mike sneering at him.

“I think they should stay,” Mike continued.

“Yeah Harris,” another voice called from somewhere. “Why have you always got to be such a downer?”

“Hey,” he raised his hands defensively. “I’m just trying to offer suggestions here, I’m not…” he withered under the weight of the angry looks he was getting. People were obviously not over him ruining their kumbaya shit at the reading that time. “Wendy?” he called, looking for someone to save him.

Wendy had in recent weeks been promoted to Head Barista as a result of all the new employees, and amidst training staff, was now granted the responsibility of making decisions such as this. “Hey, I need some entertainment,” she said. “They can stay as far as I’m concerned.”

So for the foreseeable future, the people at Dark and Bitter did their work whilst listening to the sweet sound of Romeo and Juliet’s eternal, forbidden love playing out around them.

But that’s not the worst it got. The decision opened the floodgates to hosts of people all trying their hand at endless lists of far-flung projects. Anyone that had ever wanted to try something creative but had been too afraid to was suddenly flocking to the place with new-found courage in their hearts, finally ready to share their secret passions with the world. Watercolourists set up easels, musicians sang, actors soliloquised, performers juggled, drumming circles formed, and dog show trainers even trained dogs. The shop threatened to burst under the stress of the traffic, so much so that Colton started securing plans for an extension to the premises. Now there were builders in the shop too.

Harris ploughed on through it all, he wasn’t going to let anything stop him again. He didn’t just have his inspiration back, he had a determination as well; a determination that could perhaps only come from desperately trying to prove to yourself that spending $10000 on a chair was a good idea. He had a deadline for his next 100 pages, and despite his low period, he ended up finishing way early.

On deadline day, as he was sending off the necessary emails, somewhere amidst the din of Shakespeare, and power tools, and dogs barking, and somebody covering Wonderwall for the millionth time, a shout went up that punctured through it all.

“No you listen to me!” an enraged, hostile voice cried.

One of the baristas was talking to the woman responsible for the noise. “Ma’am if you would just calm down, everything would…”

“I was FIRED, you hear me?!” The woman screamed. “My boss said all my designs were terrible, every single one I’ve done for WEEKS! Those are designs I’ve been working on in YOUR shop! Your MAGIC coffee shop!”

The room fell silent as all eyes turned on the heretic.

“Isn’t everything anyone does here supposed to be fucking PERFECT? Isn’t it supposed to be…”

Wendy walked over to her. “Hey I’m sorry about your job, but you cannot disturb the customers like this.” She softly grabbed the woman by the arms and began to lead her to the door.

“You’re all idiots!” she began to cry as she was led away. “Places can’t just make you good at something. They can’t just…”

“Get her out of here!” someone yelled.

The crowd started booing and yelling at the woman, and they didn’t stop until she was long gone.

Harris didn’t write much the next few days whilst he waited for word back from his publisher, he mostly just hung around the shop, talking to Wendy, listening to the musicians and watching the actors.

“Haven’t enough people done Shakespeare now, don’t you think?” Harris said as he watched Juliet stab herself over Romeo’s dead body for the third time that day. “It’s like that infinite monkeys thing, right? That was Shakespeare. Surely every possible version of this play has already been performed. What’s left to explore?”

“So you’re saying it’s like your writing then?” Wendy replied. “Just the same shit over and over again?”

“Ouch,” he said, clutching his chest. “That one actually hurt. No but seriously, why do you let them practice here? They’re scaring people away. Them and every other weirdo here.” Harris eyed a cocker spaniel that was intently sniffing his chair between its trainer’s attempts to make it walk on its hind legs.

“The place looks full to me.”

“Okay maybe,” he said. “But what about all the regulars we used to have? None of them come here anymore. I haven’t seen Frank in weeks!”

“Oh god,” Wendy raised her hand to mouth. “You didn’t hear?”

“What?” He asked. “Hear what?”

“Frank is in the hospital,” she said. “His new shed collapsed with him inside it.”

“Oh my god. How is that even possible?”

“I know, right?”

“He designed that shed here, how could it go wrong?” Harris said in disbelief.

Wendy’s look turned to one of incredulity. “Are you an insane person?”

“What?”

Before Wendy could answer, the two of them found themselves spontaneously swallowed in a hug from Patrice, who had sprinted over from her usual spot in the room.

“I just got an investor for Cloud K-9!” she squealed.

“…Oh,” the pair of them said in unison, shooting each other concerned looks over her head. “…Congratulations.”

“I just knew I could do it!” she said, before grabbing a muffin from the jar and frantically running off to tell someone else.

“Someone was stupid enough to invest in that?” Wendy whispered once Patrice was far enough away.

Harris shook his head “What is going on here?”

Unusually, there was no line outside the building the next day when Harris came through the door, but this time he was way too preoccupied to notice.

“They hate it,” he said, the second he got up to the counter.

“I tried to stop it, but…” Wendy began. “Oh,” she said after a second. “Who hates what?” she started making him a coffee.

“The publishers,” Harris said, anger twisting his face. “They hate what I sent them. Drastic revision needed were their exact words I believe.”

“Oh honey I’m sorry.” Wendy reached across the bar and gave his hand a squeeze. “You’ll make it better, I know you will.”

“I don’t understand,” he continued. “I felt so good writing it all, like this was what I was made to write. I just don’t get what went wrong.”

“Well you were out of sorts for a while, right?”

“No, but most of what I sent was from after that. This was all after I paid for the chair.” He turned to look at his spot and contemplate his failings, but when he did he saw that the chair was no longer there. Instead there was just a blank space, a cavernous hollow in the room.

“…Yeah, about that.” Wendy said. “One of those dogs … the ones that do the tricks, you know…”

Harris sighed darkly. “The cocker spaniel.”

“Yeah … it kind of shit all over your chair this morning.”

“Why did you have to let dogs in here?” his voice was quiet and bitter.

“It’s already been taken to the cleaners,” she continued quickly, trying to make him feel better. “But it’s pretty bad, I won’t lie. We might need to get you a new one.”

“A new one?” Harris could barely comprehend the words. “No, I need the old one back! They’re threatening to pull my advance, I need to save my contract!”

“Just write somewhere else,” she suggested. “Surely it can’t be that hard.”

“Do you think if I could do that, I would have paid ten-thousand dollars for a chair that you just let get ruined?” he shouted.

“Okay, hold on.” Wendy had had enough. “First of all, I told you that was a stupid idea when you did it, and did you listen? No of course you fucking didn’t. Secondly, don’t dare start blaming me for this when it’s clearly your fault for being such a shitty writer in the first place.”

Harris flinched at the words, visibly hurt. “You know what? Fuck this. Fuck all of this.” He gestured around the room. “This place has been a disaster for months.”

“Why the fuck did you stick around then?” she glared at him.

 “I…” Harris trailed off when he met her gaze and failed to see a trace of the warmth he usually found there. “I have no idea.”

Harris felt lost, he couldn’t remember the last time he went somewhere that wasn’t Dark and Bitter or his bed. He just wandered the streets for a while after he left the shop, unsure of what to do or where to go. The sense of purposelessness was intoxicating; it was almost too tempting to just stay like this forever, no deadline, no pressure. Losing his advance was another matter though, especially considering that he almost definitely wasn’t getting the money for the chair back now. So reluctantly, he had begun searching for a new place to work.

The new place he found wasn’t as cosy as the last. There were no armchairs, just hard, wooden ones, all uniform too rather the mismatched, cobbled together patterns he was used to. The floor wasn’t carpet, but a kind of rustic-looking concrete with a smooth finish on top, the kind that would make it easy to mop up a spillage if one occurred. The bar served all kinds of waffles and fancy cakes, with glass panels under the bar displaying the dazzling array of treats ready to be gorged on, but they didn’t have any muffins, Harris had checked.

The blank page stared at him with the full weight of two months of worthless work behind it, daring him to screw it up all over again. Harris stared back, and he kept staring, and he kept staring until he finished his coffee and went to get another.

It took a lot of time, and a lot of coffee, but eventually he managed to make the first strike. Then after that, slowly, miraculously, that tiny chip in the wall turned into a crack, then a trickle, and then finally a stream. Not a flurry, not the hectic, furious pace his $10000 seat had instilled into him, but something calmer, something more measured, more stable. He thought carefully as he wrote, making sure to give each word the weight that it deserved.

By the time the day had rounded out, not only had he written way more than he thought he ever could have done at somewhere other than his old spot, but he had written something that for the first time in quite a while, he really knew he wanted to say. Harris figured maybe this place wasn’t so bad after all.

It was a longer walk to the new shop from his house, but the next morning Harris took every step happily. The sun was bright and there was a freshness to the air, an invigorating force that propelled him to his destination, filling him with a natural energy that willed him to get started as fast as possible.

It took all of a second when he walked through the doors for that energy to disappear. The place was different to how it had been the day before. There were at least twice as many people, and this time a lot of them were armed with laptops. In fact, Harris recognised more than a few people as Dark and Bitter regulars, some that hadn’t been as frequent lately.

Worse still, was a velvet rope cordoning off the back corner of the room, the corner he had sat in the day before. A sign had been thrown up at its entrance.

Creative Corner

Come and find your inspiration here

$5 entry

 Suddenly Harris needed a coffee. Sighing deeply, he walked over to the velvet rope, paid his entry fee, and sat down in yesterday’s seat. It was time to get to work.