Tuesday, November 01, 2005

first Coffee shop scene. not necessarily the beginning, 427

"Why do I even bother to do anything?" Peter asked this question often; many of his friends gave up and begun to wonder why, in fact, Peter did anything. Sometimes complete strangers would give him advice from time to time, but usually they just gave him annoyed looks. Today, however, the waitress pouring Peter's coffee was in an interesting mood and decided to give him an answer.
"Why don't you bother doing anything?" she asked, with a somewhat ironic tone.
"What?" Peter replied. He was quite a bit startled, for after a year of going to this particular coffee shop every morning, Peter had become accustomed to being ignored by the employees and usual clientele.
"You never do anything," continued the waitress. Her voice had all the implications of a rant about to begin. "You've been coming in here for about a year, now, I think, and all you do is sit here for about an hour and drink your coffee with sugar and non-dairy creamer. You never talk to anyone, you never come in with anyone, you don't even read a paper! You just walk in and order a coffee and stare into space, and every once in a while you'll ask why you bother to do anything to no one in particular. What do you do when you aren't here that you shouldn't bother doing anymore?"
A stunned silence gripped Peter, then let go slowly. "Um... er... uh, well, what I do. Um" explained Peter, "I work. I have a job. And that's none of your business!" Silence let go and the usual annoyance and irritability took over. "What kind of a place is this, anyway?" As Peter regained his composure, he angrily began to pack his affects. After a moment or so, he realised he had nothing to pack angrily, flailed with something that was a bit too pathetic to be rage but definately stronger than mere annoyance, and spilled the remainder of his coffee. The waitress merely watched with a combination of sympathy and amusement. This did nothing for his mood. "Do all the employees here go around criticising the customers? Did I ask for an analysis of my personal life?"
The waitress blinked. "Well, actually, yes, you did," she replied, then laughed.
"I don't have to put up with this. You've just lost a customer!" Peter tried to storm out, but it just wasn't his thing. The waitress simply shook her head. Not much of a loss, she thought, One cup of coffee a every morning isn't putting anyone out of business.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

can't wait to read more.

Erin said...

Quite good! I want more. I want to know why Peter doesn't bother to do anything.

Marten said...

I'm scared all my posts are going to be really short bits. I've only ever done short stories before.

Erin said...

hee!