“There is no question that there is an
unseen world. The problem is, how far is it
from midtown and how late is it open?”
―WOODY ALLEN
I.
The streets in this quarter of town are unfriendly toward travelers. Well-worn cobbles give way unexpectedly to unmaintained dirt paths. Blind corners and tall stone walls prevent finding one's bearings in the trackless maze of identical alleys and crossings. Houses older than their inhabitants by a century lean stubbornly on neglected lawns in clusters, where the old growth of yesterday's settlers has not yet been razed in favor of gleaming paper-mache tenements with already-fractured foundations.
The inhabitants of this quaint demi-urban purgatory, such as they are, rarely deign to offer assistance. Spied infrequently under the glare of a porchlight or passing motor-lamp while disposing formless sacks of household refuse, they appear more than anything as animals caught in the beam of a hunter's torch. Whether frozen prey or calculating predator, it is impossible to tell. When pressed, they will point in the direction of the nearest artery and mumble a few words of direction before slipping inside between furtive glances.
I had seen no such creatures tonight through fogged spectacles as I navigated the twists and turns of the increasingly misty thoroughfare. A sulfurous yellow beam sluiced through the air as a streetlamp of dubious age flickered to life with a hellish buzz in response to the rapidly waning twilight.
I pulled the wool coat tighter around my shoulders and tucked my hands into the pockets as the wind chill seeped into my leather gloves, which were designed more for driving than keeping this unseasonal autumn bite out of one's fingerbones. Unfortunately my vehicle had succumbed to the elements before my own flesh, and was undergoing what I could only imagine was a barely more pleasant experience in a mechanic's unheated garage, cold-cracked internals strewn about the oily floor like so many rubbery entrails as the surgeon frantically seeks the source of bleeding.
Still, I knew the intercourse of the residential byways well enough, through occasional departures from my typical routes to and from the office. Treading this way by foot was, for all the ills of its atmosphere, preferable to being drowned in slush thrown from a hundred passing tires on Main Street.
But the bite of the air was exceptionally vicious this evening. In what was, perhaps, either a fortunate or regrettable impulse, I cut over one street through a chainlink-lined cycle path, and ducked into…
…into…
II.
Twilight Sparkle groaned and slumped facedown on the typewriter. A dozen keys clacked in unison. She could tell by the sound that at least half were jammed.
"Rough day?"
She rolled her head to the side, adding more keys to the jam. Above her the peach-maned barista smiled, balancing a steaming mug of barley roast on one hoof.
Twilight huffed, blowing her mane out of her eyes. "You could say that." She took the mug in her magic and felt the heat radiate gently into her horn. The scent perked her nostrils, and she sat up. "I've been stuck on this scene for weeks now, and it's just … not happening."
"Ah, that's too bad," the barista said, sympathetically. "I hope you find the muse again soon."
"Thanks—" Twilight began to reply, but the barista was already trotting toward a dour-looking stallion a few tables away.
She sighed and took a sip of the dark brew. It was almost hot enough to burn, but not quite. The barest hint of nutmeg and cocoa balanced out the savor of the roasted barley. Sometimes she missed the bitter bite which heralded the delayed onset of energy, but the reduction of withdrawal headaches was worth it.
Besides, it was more about the ceremony than anything else. Soon she felt the frustration start to ebb as she nursed the mug, and she took a moment to glance around the cafe.
It was rather unbusy for a midweek afternoon. Behind the counter, the peach-maned pegasus barista tossed her locks and cast a flirty look at the older unicorn stallion working next to her. He rolled his eyes and busied himself cleaning the countertops, but the corner of his mouth turned up briefly.
The only other patron was the earth pony sitting a few tables away. He was young, but his face seemed stuck in a permanent scowl that added years, and his figure was so waifish that it bordered on malnutritioned. With a writing implement designed for hooves, he scribbled and sketched furiously on yellowed parchment. The tall coffee next to him was half-empty, but had stopped steaming long ago.
At least he has some inspiration, Twilight mused. She took another sip and watched him for a few more minutes, then turned back to her typewriter.
The keys were, indeed, jammed.
With another sigh, she put down her coffee and set to work untangling the typebars with her magic.
III.
Shaking the condensation from my sleeves, I took in the interior of the establishment. As inoffensive as it is aggressively modern, the sameness of a franchise milieu yet offers a kind of temporary familiar comfort. Densely-packed tables sat at odds with the sparse patrons, most of whom seemed eager to obtain their orders and press on to whatever banal modern contrivance demanded the lion's share of their increasingly stretched capacities.
Not that I had much space in which to judge, I mused, as I reflected upon the mindless blue luminescent stream of shared human consciousness which would no doubt serve to numb the remainder of my waking hours when I arrived home that evening.
Thus, I resolved to take this moment as a respite from such things, a chance to exist without distractions while I regained the feeling in my appendages. Likewise, I pointedly chose to ignore the irony of trading almost a fourth of my hourly wage for the privilege of doing so in this carefully-fabricated corporate imitation of cozy succor.
With my order placed and payment made to the polite and balding middle-aged man behind the counter, I made my way to an empty table and settled in. As the scene beyond the window was little more than wisps of fog in the receding light, I turned my attention to the one other occupant who seemed, like me, intent to defy the engineered liminality of the space.
IV.
With a jerk of magic, the last two keys of the typewriter fell back into place.
Twilight sighed in relief and took a moment to survey the damage. The bottom third of the page was a smudged mess of jumbled letters, but at least there was no permanent damage to the mechanism. She tugged the page off the roller and set it off to the side, then replaced it with a fresh one.
"Okay, I'll come back to that," she said to herself. "Just jump ahead to the next scene…" Her forehooves poised over two large keys, ready to strike the chord for the first letter of the first sentence.
The letter never came.
"Ugh." She slumped back in her seat again and grabbed the mug in her magic again. It was warm and half-full, but she'd let it sit for a little too long. Still, she savored a large swallow and looked up.
The slim earth pony across the shop had stopped drawing, and was watching her now.
She tilted her head curiously and he averted his eyes, seemingly embarrassed to be caught staring.
It didn't necessarily bother her. Her social standing and public position meant a lot of ponies recognized her regularly, and she'd learned to graciously field all kinds of interactions ranging from awkward hellos to obsessive policy debates.
When the earth pony raised his eyes to hers again, she nodded toward her typewriter, then rolled her eyes and made an exaggerated sigh of resignment.
A brief hint of a knowing smile tweaked his lips. He pointed to the parchment, then raised his hoof with the writing implement attached, and waggled it smugly.
To her own surprise, Twilight laughed out loud. She shook her head in mock defeat. The sudden release of emotion broke the tension in her shoulders and made her realize she was far overdue for a break.
Gathering her mug, she stood up and walked across the cafe.
V.
She was by all appearances a fairly average modern woman, occupying that indefinite space between twenty-five and forty where age falls non-linearly on the features. Her close-cropped bangs glinted with maroon highlights, a not-uncommon style these days, framing a face that was softer than her figure seemed to vaguely suggest beneath a loose pastel turtleneck sweater and dark slacks.
Still, what caught my eye was not her appearance, but rather her bearing. No fewer than four tall disposable coffee cups stood abandoned at the edge of her table, exhausted of their contents. With nigh-religious fervor excluding all other cares, she peered at the soft diffuse light of her portable computer, fingers flying over chiclet keys.
What was it, I wondered, that inspired her? My heart flared with jealousy as I recalled, in shame, the languishing manuscripts deep within the cobwebbed digital archives of my own construction, half-filled with empty promises of self-actualization.
Perhaps out of misplaced spite, or an attempt at assuaging the demon within me, I reached into my inner coat pocket and retrieved a small notebook and a retracting pencil of ingenious mechanical design. Impression sketching is one of my oft-neglected pastimes, so I opened to one of the many unused pages and began putting lines to paper.
I began with the older barista who took my order, roughly outlining his prominent features. I do not focus on specific details nor precision in these sketches. Rather, I prefer to let instinct guide my pencil while I observe both the subject and the paper through opposing corners of my peripheral vision. I do not dabble specifically in free-drawing, but it could be said that my technique is not unlike it in a broad sense.
Next I moved on to the other barista, a young woman in the process of preparing orders. Then the revolving door of patrons entering and exiting the shop. I was halfway through a fourth simple portrait when I felt a presence approach.
"One black coffee, grande?"
I roused my faculties from my reverie and looked up. A peach-blonde barista extended the plastic-capped cup toward me with an obligatory smile. I accepted it with a nod.
As the barista retreated toward the counter where a dwindling line of guests waited, I wrapped my stiff fingers around the warmth of the drink. It is not frequently that I am prone to embellishment, but indulge me when I say it was as though Death slowly released His grasp on my flesh and I felt life return to me.
I savored the respite for some time, sipping the bitter tonic as it cooled in my grip. Then I returned pencil to paper once again, and soon found the fringe of my gaze drawn to the woman at the table across from me. The balance of my focus moved away from my notebook, though it seemed like my hand flew across the paper on its own accord, driven by instinct rather than conscious effort.
VI.
The thin stallion's dour countenance seemed to lift slightly as Twilight approached. He unclipped the quill attachment from his hoof and waved cautiously. "Having trouble with your typewriter?"
Twilight shrugged ruefully. "Well, kind of. It's more writer's block, I guess you could say. The mechanical trouble is more my fault for mistreating it."
"Believe me, I know what you mean," the stallion said. He motioned toward the seat opposite him. "Would you care to sit for a minute, take a break?"
"Thank you." She edged into the seat, then sipped on her barley roast.
The stallion eyed her, like he was trying to figure something out. "Forgive me if I'm wrong, but… you're Twilight Sparkle, right? Princess Celestia's pupil?"
"That's me," she said, raising a hoof sheepishly. "Ponyville's most famous exchange student, apparently."
He nodded. "I thought so. Pardon me for staring, I thought I recognized you from somewhere, but it took me some time to figure it out. If I may ask, what are you working on?"
"Something for a friend…" Twilight swirled her drink and took another sip. "Trying my hoof at fiction, actually. I can't decide what to get her for Hearth’s Warming, so I thought I'd write her a short story about one of her favorite characters. But…" She motioned back to the typewriter and sighed. "It hasn't been going too well. My talents are more suited to technical dissertations, it seems."
VII.
"Oh come on!"
I was roused from my creative reverie by the cry of frustration and the sound of hands slamming on a table. Looking up, I saw the young woman slump against her seat and run her hands through her hair.
Gathering myself I shook the fatigue from my eyes. My hands found the half-empty cup which had been deposited near my notebook and I took a gulp, seeking the sharp buzz of stimulants to engage the gears of my wearied brain.
Immediately I recoiled in horror as the liquid touched my throat. No longer warm and complex, the beverage had practically congealed in an ice-cold partial suspension. I swallowed the gulp ruefully and hissed at myself for allowing the drink to become unpalatable.
"Please be saved, please be saved…"
The actions of the woman again caught my attention. She was mumbling and frantically tapping various keys, seemingly at random.
Typically on principle, I do not engage in unsolicited conversation with strangers. I find it distasteful to insert oneself in the business of others without invitation. Still, I cannot deny my curiosities were aroused, and with little else to assuage the vague emptiness of my brain I determined to at least make an attempt at friendly social interaction.
"Having trouble?" I called gently. The bustle of the shop had mostly fallen, as myself and the young woman were the only occupants yet remaining aside from the baristas, who were chattering quietly behind the counter.
The woman looked up and sighed. "Damn thing's frozen again. You wouldn't happen to know anything about computers, do you?"
I shrugged. "I know enough to get by. I can take a look, but not sure I'd be able to help."
"I'll take all the help I can get," she said, gathering her bag and drink. She took the few strides across the almost-cramped seating area and pulled up a chair to my right, setting the device so we both could peer at the screen.
Making a pointed effort to not pry into whatever personal project she was engaged in, I confirmed with a few keystrokes that the system was indeed non-responsive. I had not misrepresented my abilities, and it was clear within minutes that even the slightly more advanced troubleshooting techniques I had retained would not be sufficient to solve the issue.
"My apologies," I said, taking my hands from the keys remorsefully. "I don't think there's anything else to do but power-cycle it. But thankfully it appears you're using a cloud service, so chances are good that not much was lost."
"I was afraid of that," she said, taking the device back. She closed the screen and put her hands on it with a sigh. "Thanks for trying anyway."
"Of course," I replied. "I do hope you're able to recover … well whatever it is you were working on."
"Short story actually," she said, with a slightly wistful voice. "Probably not very good."
"Hmm." Lacking much else to say, I forced myself to take another sip of the cold coffee. I also took the moment to ponder excessively on small details, as I am wont to do. For example, I marked that the young lady had not left the table. The tone of her voice was indeterminate, but carried what I could only interpret as a sort of hopefulness. Had she wanted me to read the screen, in some roundabout way of seeking input on her work?
I set the cup back down. "What's it about?"
VIII.
Twilight hemmed and hawed a bit. "It's not very good. And it's a silly idea really."
The stallion relaxed back in his seat and motioned vaguely. "That's fine, I'm curious. Indulge me?"
"Well it's kinda why I'm here actually," Twilight said. "I had this idea that somewhere in the universe is a coffee shop that is actually a bridge between worlds. When you're inside, there's a chance that you're actually interacting with somepony from another time or place. Maybe not even a pony."
"How would that work though? Wouldn't everypony… or every creature? Anyway, wouldn't they all speak a different language or look different?"
"Not necessarily. You'd still see a pony, or whatever you expect to see. The veil between is just a little thinner, so they're actually like a projection or something and your mind makes sense of it in the way you're most familiar with."
"Huh. interesting." The stallion tapped one hoof on the table thoughtfully. "I think I read a book like that once, a long long time ago. Something about spaceships and captains. Except it was a bar, I think?"
Twilight shrugged and chuckled. "I never claimed it was a completely original idea," she said. "I'm sure I was inspired by a Daring Do adventure of some kind that I've since forgotten."
IX.
"Well, there's certainly nothing wrong with taking inspiration from other sources," I agreed. "Is that why you're writing here, in a coffee shop?"
"Yeah, I was trying to gain a bit of inspiration from actually being in the space, I guess." She took a sip of her own coffee.
I was struck by the sensation that something about this woman was unique. She carried an air of otherness, an unspoken longing for the uncapturable. I supposed it was likewise with many creatives, who seek a glimpse of reality beyond our own.
"So what about you?" she said, leaning toward my edge of the table. "What are you working on?"
"Oh, truly it's nothing," I said. Struck by sudden remembrance that I had been using the other patrons as subjects, I surreptitiously attempted to rearrange the sheets of my notebook in as casual a manner as possible. "Only small sketches, brainstorming, that kind of—"
"Wait, is that me?"
A burn stung my cheeks with the realization that I was caught. I stammered, attempting to downplay the nature of the thing. "My apologies, I'm—I sometimes draw from life—I'm sure it's not very—"
It was at that moment I glanced down at my paper, both in an attempt to avoid eye contact and also to gauge how terribly I might offend the young woman. What I saw there chilled my heart with a swiftness I have not felt before or since.
What I had drawn was not human.
My hand froze, framing the sketch of a creature captured in few lines but frightening detail… I took in the grotesque quadruped nature, limbs bent without visible joints and which terminated in keratinous stumps… the distorted face with too-large eyes and a terrible horn protruding from the forehead… and perhaps worst of all the visage of calculating intelligence seeping from behind the countenance of childish innocence.
X.
"It looks just like me!" Twilight pulled the paper toward her with her magic and examined the drawing closer. There she was at her typewriter, rendered in sparse but skillful lines.
She pursed her lips and whistled, impressed. "Wow, you're really good. A little creepy to be drawing ponies without asking, but you really captured… well me, I guess!"
The stallion just sat there, frozen.
"Oh!" Twilight exclaimed with a sudden realization. "I'm so sorry, I guess maybe you wanted to keep these private. I understand; I'm self-conscious about my work too sometimes."
He kept staring at her, wide-eyed, as his hooves started working clumsily to gather the sheets from the table.
It was starting to make her uncomfortable too. "Hey, it's okay, I'm not mad that you used me as a subject or anything," she continued. "I think it's flattering actua—"
"I need to leave!" He snatched the sketch from her magic with his teeth and shoved it roughly into the sketchbook, then darted past her toward the door.
"Wait!" She stumbled but managed to put herself between him and the door. "I think we got off on the wrong hoof—"
XI.
"—got off on the wrong foot," the creature said, placing herself in my path to safety. "I didn't mean to embarrass you or anything. It's just that I'm new in town, and my mentor Ms. Oliver told me I need to make new friends—"
I backed away from the thing like a caged animal, clutching my sketchbook before me as though it were a shield. Somehow I had stumbled upon some terrible truth, a rift in the seams of my understanding which threatened to unravel the very fabric of my mind.
"—I've only met a few people here so far, and they're all really nice—"
I forced myself to breathe, to try and think rationally through my predicament. There was only one entrance to the shop which I knew of, and it was blocked. I had no weapons on me, and my physique did not lend itself to violence. Realizing my only escape may lie in enlisting the help of others, I turned toward the baristas who had taken an interest in the altercation.
"Please, I have to leave," I implored the older gentleman. "But this… she… it won't—"
My voice stopped dead as I perceived a faint shimmer in my vision. It was as though one of my eyes was seeing something different, indistinct and out of focus. Fearing the worst, I flipped open my sketchbook and grabbed the first drawings I had made. In an instant my nightmares were confirmed as I took in the horror laid bare in penciled lines.
"Sir?"
XII.
The thin stallion made a choking noise, eyes wide with terror as he gazed at the page.
"Sir?" the barista pony asked, "Is everything okay?"
Then the stallion screamed and threw his papers in the air. Twilight leaped backward in surprise.
Still shrieking, he vaulted onto the tabletops and scrambled across the shop, knocking over everything in his path. In a few short bounds, he cleared the distance to the door and burst through it, knocking aside several other ponies who were on their way in.
Stunned, Twilight could only stare at the slowly closing door.
"Wait, so what happened?" the younger barista pony said. She flicked her mane out of her eyes.
"I'm not sure…" Twilight replied. She made her way over to the discarded parchment sheets. "What scared him so badly?"
She picked up a few pages in her magic and began leafing through. The most recent one was of herself, but she could see nothing strange. Just a sketch of her in a coffee shop working at a typewriter.
Then she flipped over the next page. It wasn't a pony, but rather a strange creature with slimy-looking scales for skin. It stood on two legs, had flippers where its forelegs would be, and tentacles growing from its face and head, with gills on its neck. Oddly, it was also wearing what looked like a paper hat.
"Huh," the older barista pony said, peering over the counter. He adjusted his paper hat. "That looks just like me."
Author's Note
This story was written for a closed holiday fanfiction exchange where participants provided settings they would feel comfortable writing in, settings they would like to receive a gift in, and a story prompt / suggestion / request. Everyone was then matched by best setting fits, with MLP being the "default" fallback.
The prompt for this fic was simply "Coffee Shop AU", which threw me a bit since I've never even read anything in that genre. Since MLP was the default setting, and the person I was writing for had also included the Lovecraftian Mythos as one of their options, I settled on a "setting crossover" of sorts where an unnamed purple-prose-prone protagonist meets a particular purple pony.
I don't think this story necessarily fulfills the strict form of a Coffee Shop AU, rather being a story set in a coffeeshop, but I hope the final result is satisfying enough.
