fiction

The Denver Café Chronicles—Prodigy Coffee

Mission: Every week I visit a new café/coffee shop in Denver, and write an article that has 2 segments. The first part, “the fact,” is my experience at the café, a review if you will, how I’m feeling, what I see, etc… The second part, “the fiction,” consists of a fictional story that I come up with while at the café. I grab onto my surroundings, the vibes, and my feelings to inspire the short story.

fact

It is a hot, hot day. I’ve been outside for the majority of it, and all I want is an ice cold caffeinated beverage. I’ve got some time to kill in between my work day so I decide to find a coffee shop along my route. I find a few nearby but there’s a name that stands out to me which is five minutes out of my way. Googling the photos of this coffeehouse, I’m attracted to the bright murals painted on the outside of the building. Pulling up to Prodigy Coffeehouse, I notice the shop is its own building with large garage-style doors. There are people spread out working on their computers and meeting with people. The vibes are fresh and cool as I walk into the shop, music is softly bumping. I’m greeted by two pleasant baristas. I ask about a drink on the menu and the barista politely explains it’s just a frozen drink, similar to “their friends across the street”. I look over his shoulder out the large barn door windows to see what he’s talking about realizing immediately that it’s Starbucks. I order myself an iced homemade chai and ask him to throw some espresso in it. He doesn’t ask me how much, but smiles and nods his head as he types it into the computer. I also order a cheesecake brownie, because well, brownie.

There is a lot of open seating available, inside and out. I like the vibes inside, so I choose a booth next to a closed glass garage door. I like booths because I can easily sit cross-legged in them. There’s a cute large pup sleeping on the floor next to my spot. I pretty much devour my brownie in a matter of seconds, to the point where the last few bites are tasteless due to the sugar overload on my tongue. I sit enjoying my brownie, taking sips of my iced chai and look around the room. The coffee bar is made up of these cool looking green ceiling tiles, the kind you might find on the ceiling of an old pub. I notice I’m surrounded by my favorite color, lime green. There are quotes on the wall and my favorite one says “it is certainly true that you can’t judge a book by its cover, nor can you judge a book by its first chapter—even if that chapter is twenty years long.” For some reason, that one resonates with me.

I’m noticing that I am becoming extremely sweaty sitting in this booth. Half of my body is in direct sunlight, and it’s enough to make me move to a table out of the sun. It’s no booth, but I still manage to find myself sitting cross-legged in the chair. A nice breeze blows on me from the open garage doors. This coffeehouse is possibly one of my favorite cafés I’ve been to yet. The openness of the building with the glass garage doors, the concrete floors and countertops, the booth and table seating, the hip music playing above, and the trendy yet simple menu all create this very familiar yet unique vibe. This place just feels cool. But not the too cool kind of place. The kind of place that I could see myself sitting in during the middle of the day in shorts, often. I’m so content sitting here, but I get a tad sidetracked when I stumble across videos of adults seeing colors for the first time. I’m literally crying in the middle of this coffeehouse and I love it.

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Jim and Carrie sit at the end of the old wooden dock and let their feet dangle above the water. The pot roast Jim started a few hours ago has about 30 more minutes until it’s ready. Every Sunday, they make a nice dinner, spend time outside together, and make sure that their phones are away left charging in their room. Sunday is their day.

“I promise, I will pick up the poop!” Carrie yells at him with a giant smirk on her face.

“No way in hell. We do not have the time for a puppy right now!” Jim never had pets as a child and doesn’t relate with Carrie on her want to get a dog.

“But we have this huge yard. Just imagine little Jimmy jumping off this dock playing catch!”

“Okay, so first off, if we get a dog, it will definitely not be named after ME. Second off, I love you.” He pauses as he smiles and looks into her hopeful eyes. “Third off, maybe in a couple years.”

“YEARS! Nooooo,” she wails. “I simply cannot accept that answer.” She is folding her arms now like a child would in any tantrum. Her lips are pursed and her chin is raised to the sky. “I’m gonna convince you, just you wait.” She quickly swings her feet onto the dock, jumps up, then bends down to kiss the back of his neck. “You’ll see,” she whispers into his ear. He jumps up, and she pulls away from him and sprints down the dock to the grass. He chases after her and grabs her by the waist. He pulls her toward him and raises her off the ground, spinning her around twice.

“You and your puppy dreams are going to be the downfall of my very successful garden.” He plants a full kiss on her lips and sets her back on the ground.

“Ha!” She spits back at him. “You mean THAT very successful garden?” She points to four wilting tomato plants across the yard.

“It has been a bad rain season!” He exclaims back at her.

“Oh my god, YOU are the one that can’t handle a puppy. I’ll come home to it dead after a business trip and you’ll say something dumb like ‘it never made itself dinner!”

“Exactly!”

Carrie rolls her eyes. Smiling, she pulls herself away from Jim, takes his hand and leads him back to the house. The kitchen smells so good of pot roast. The evening has gotten chilly and the house still has some warmth left in it from the warm day.

“Hey babe, can you put the garlic bread in? I’ll make the salad.”

“Oh, you mean your famous lettuce and cheese?” Carrie shot back to him as she places the bread in the oven.

“Hey now, simplicity is the best.”

“Simplicity is boring. And tasteless.” Carrie moves behind Jim and grabs a couple fresh tomatoes she bought from a farmers market earlier that morning. “See, THIS is what you could have. Someday. Definitely, after we get our puppy.”

“Oh! I promise you. We will have fresh homegrown tomatoes long before we have a puppy.” He replies back, shredding a block of cheese.

“I won’t hold my breath.” She takes out a cutting board from the cabinets under Jim, and slices up the tomato. “Oh, I forgot!” She excitedly jumps and prances over to the fridge. “I picked up this awesome balsamic vinaigrette at the market this morning. The old man selling it was so cute. I had like a 10-minute conversation with him.” She handed it to Jim and he looked it over.

“Cool bottle,” he says. He opens it up and puts a couple drops onto his finger. “Mmmm.” He then proceeds to slowly pour it over the lettuce. “I think we have some pine nets left over from the other night.” Carrie went over to the pantry and grabbed the small bag of nuts.

“See!” Jim shouted. Way more than just lettuce and cheese.”

“Barely, babe.” She smacks his butt and takes out 2 wine glasses from the open cupboard. “Got this too.” She waves a wine bottle above her head.

“Nice.” He smirks at her while he mixes the salad.

She places the glasses down with a slight clank. Jim turns into Carrie, grabs her face with both hands and gives her a hard kiss on her forehead. Carrie crinkles her nose as he pulls away.

“Your hands are so wet,” she says as she dramatically wipes her face with the sleeve of her shirt and gives him a big side smile as she turns to open the wine bottle.

The Denver Café Chronicles—The Weathervane Cafe

Mission: Every week I will visit a new café/coffee shop in Denver. I will write, blog, at each one. The article will have 2 segments. The first part, “the fact,” will be my experience at the café, a review if you will, how I’m feeling, what I see, etc… The second part, “the fiction,” will consist of a fictional story that I come up with while at the café. I’ll be grabbing onto my surroundings, the vibes, and my feelings to inspire a short story.

the fact

I couldn’t be more pleasantly surprised stepping into this quaint and quirky coffee shop. From the outside, it looks like a little house with big red umbrellas and a large sign with an urban font in white capital letters reading “Weathervane.” The windows seem to be dark and covered and it’s not easy to tell if there are people inside, let alone if they are open. The front door has one of those old door knobs that looks like it has a swooping nose that you press down to open. Music gushes through the crack of the door as I open it. I immediately am hit with warmth. The kind that you feel on your skin, and the kind that you feel in your belly. Feeling the warmth in my belly, I can’t help but smile as I look around at the small space.

I set my bag down at a table in between two tables occupied by people happily chatting away. I go to take my wallet out when I notice the sign on the table that reads, “this table is reserved for dining and socializing. NO LAPTOPS.” Awkwardly, I stand there for several seconds, hand in my bag, reading this sign, deciding what to do since I came here to be on my laptop. I notice my awkward lingering next to the people sitting down at the table next to me, so I take my hand out of my bag, set it down, head to the counter only to realize that I indeed did not grab my wallet, so I turn back around to again awkwardly fumble around in my bag. Walking back up to the counter, which is more like taking 3 steps, I look over the menu which has a plentiful amount of breakfast foods and sandwiches. Wondering if I should get something sweet or savory, I decide on a breakfast burrito, because, burrito. When I see a burrito on the menu in a café, it’s almost a reaction to order it. I get myself a cappuccino as well, my other go to order. Something I’ve noticed from visiting all these cafés is they always ask me if whole milk is ok, which I am more than fine with. Back in the midwest at the cafés I’d go to, the typical milk they use is 2% and they just assume that you will be fine with it.

After ordering, I look around a bit, and notice that there’s a sign next to a staircase that says “more seating upstairs.” As soon as I read this, I head up the old wooden windy staircase. I almost trip as I reach the last step and pretty much fall into a room that is occupied with two people reading, and one person on a laptop. The room is oddly quiet, and everyone is now looking at me. I give a little smirk and catch my feet below me as I stop the momentum of my body. Once I refocus my eyes, I see that the room is nicely lit by the morning sun. The room has couches and a couple of quirky tables. The wood floors squeak as I walk on them. It is very noticeable since the room is deadly quiet. I try to make silent footsteps as I walk into another small room just off the main big one. I find myself in a small long light blue room with long tables along the wall. It’s obvious that this coffee shop used to be a house. “This is where I am going to write,” I think as I smile. Nobody is in this room, there’s more of a glow coming through the window, and the room has a soft quiet feeling. I hear my name being called downstairs. I turn around, hear the loud creak of the floor below me, and head back downstairs, carefully.

My cappuccino comes up first, so I sit down at a table near the counter as I wait for my burrito. The music fills the space, and the people talking loudly next to me are not very noticeable. Great vibes. Like super great vibes. Everyone who walks through the door looks like they just got off their bike.

When my burrito comes up, I take it back to the table I was sitting at. I take a couple sips of my cappuccino as I enjoy the ambiance of the place before I head back upstairs. As soon as I step onto the staircase the sound of the café seems to sink into the wood floor and stay there. When I get upstairs, the quiet fills my ears, the music from downstairs is muffled, and now the conversations from downstairs echo and are more apparent. I put my stuff down in the blue room at a very small table that may have been an old sewing table. The burrito is so good, hot, with a deliciously spicy salsa that I scoop up with my burrito. As soon as it touches my mouth my stomach lets out a loud grumble. It’s a combination of my morning hunger, and the excitement to write in this space that leads me to finish the entire burrito in a matter of minutes.

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the fiction

Albert sits in his lab, his reading glasses sit at the tip of his nose as he reads his notes on his study. His notes on the blue-winged dragonfly, beautifully massive, cover the pages. There are scribbles off to the side, and the curves of his letters sway on the page like they’re dancing. Some scientists like to keep a digital record of their notes, but Albert prefers them this way. He lets his assistants make digital copies, but he never uses those for his own reference. When he’s not out collecting samples, Albert spends most of his time in his lab. His workspaces are tall old wooden tables. Framed insects hang on the walls in dark wooden frames. He labels each one with a number, and has a reference of that number in a large journal, corresponding to each insect he has collected. The journal lays on its own tall wooden stand, looking like a guest book you’d find at a bed and breakfast. The lab always smells like burning coffee, since there is always old burnt coffee in the coffee pot. Albert makes a whole pot early in the morning and leaves it on all day. He never finishes it. His assistants come and go every few hours. He sends them on assignments to observe the insects or environment that are part of the current study. They bring back their findings and he relates them with his own observations. He will only keep the insects that he collects himself, and any that his assistants bring back either go home with them or in the compost outside after they’ve been photographed.

Albert and his team are almost at the end of this study, so most of his time is spent going over all the notes taken, and re-writing all the conclusions made by the collective team. This part of the process has always been Albert’s favorite part. He likes the feeling of things coming to a full circle. His, now, ex-wife hated when his studies came to this point. Albert would spend very late nights at the lab. His work would take up all of his time and eventually all of his care. She left him after 15 years. Albert didn’t mind this much. His routine didn’t change much other than the fact that he now was the one putting his lunches together, which he didn’t mind either.

Albert didn’t have much of a sense of humor, and when he did attempt at one, his assistants met him with a soft chuckle before quickly leaving the room. Albert always had a good laugh by himself once they left. He’d repeat the joke out loud, make eye contact with whatever insect lay in front of him, sprawled open with pins, and laugh with himself. He thought he was quite hilarious sometimes.

Each evening before he heads home, he has the same routine of shutting down his lab. He walks around and switches off all the lamps. He neatly piles his notes in order and sets up for the next day. He lays out the next day’s assignments for his assistants and writes a plan for them on top of their pile. He quietly looks over his specimens and leaves the lamp on above them. He finally turns off the coffee pot, dumps any left over in the sink, and places it back on the heater as it loudly grumbles. He sweeps over the room with eyes and picks up any loose materials. He is very neat, and tidiness is the feel of the lab. He takes his coat off the coatrack, swings it over his shoulder as he switches off the main light switch with his other hand. He locks the heavy front door and steps down to the sidewalk where his car is parked, right in front of the lab. His five-minute drive is always quick and quiet. When he gets home, he opens up his front door to the same stillness, the same quiet that he finds so pleasant in his lab.