Trust Me

The glasses clinked in the faulty pyramid that called itself a cafe, and a gourmet cafe, no less. The lack of alcohol - a fine homage to the owners’ abstination - severed discussion, which was strictly unnecessary, with the band - a piano, a harp, a cello, and a tuba; imagine a more peculiar blend - providing jazzy lounge for the stray visitor. There had yet to be regulars, what with the cafe standing where it stood for merely a year and a half.

The waitress, a wild-haired woman with shriekingly red earrings, served coffee to a table of four, thinking about buying a new scrub for her household. Her posture, stiff, shyly determined, was a fine contrast to the other owner of the establishment - the aforementioned cellist, who left her quartet to tend to the owner-play-waitress. How is it today, she asked. Better?

Better, the waitress replied. Every day is better. She was lying, you see. No day was better than the day before. But the lie had its intended effect, and the cellist left for the kitchen to supervise.

Supervise.

With the supervisor gone, the waitress turned owner once again, with the real waitress rushing into the cafe, past the glass door where the sign OPEN neighboured the name of the establishment, written in bold pink, between a treble clef and an eighth note:

ALLEGREZZA

I’m very sorry, Vinyl, um, ma’am, I just, that is. It’s okay, it’s okay, the owner assured her with a smile. Here she was, the ex-fiance, meek, subjected, forlorn.

Forlorn.

The lack of True North, the lack of Him united them under the roof of this cafe. The lack of love united the owners. The lack of hope made the waitress come here every afternoon, after the coffee shop work.

Love became dependence, and hope became acceptance; and with these human emotions, this place was built. A shrine, it never paid enough. It was enough to keep them together, the two of them. It was enough to never drink again. It was enough to never smoke or cry. It was enough to shut down, the fine Octavian principle, the technique that Vinyl Scratch, the owner, the waitress, the DJ, the hysteric sister, picked up oh so well from her lover, her supervisor, her cellist, her partner, her wall, her stepping stone, Octavia Philarmonica, who still woke up every day to the smell of Colombian coffee that, over the months, became dull and rusty. And every day, Vinyl Scratch woke up to the nightmare of the sounds of the street crushing her, collapsing the world. But with the raven-haired, slender-built, white-toothed, angel-voiced pillar next to her, no world could ever stand a chance.

In came a stranger, thick leather boots on his feet, a military joke, dirty with grime; on his shoulders there was a waistcoat that covered a grey flannel shirt, stained with blood and dirt, and on his legs his trousers were patched and sewn quite professionally. Vinyl turned to him, eager to say, that, that, um, this, such, please, you are not wanted here. How to say it nicely? Was it this way that lost them customers? That never gained them?

She gazed into the rough, pricklish beard of the stranger in a familiar land, open-mouthed, and began to cry. The four-table glanced at her and resumed their coffee.

Nigel, Neon, Brother, lost for over a year, stamped his dirty boots towards his sister, the owner, the DJ, the sobbing lost soul. He placed his heavy body onto a chair by one of the tables. He smiled, showing a mouth of perfect teeth.

“Hi, sis. How’s the weather?”