Coffee Shop Observations

A young woman sits in a coffee shop in London, England, with her back straight, her head pointed forward, and her eyes wandering into the rainbow mists of Wonderland. She’s wearing dark navy jeans, a lavender shirt, and black high-top Converse slick with mud. A royal purple cardigan is tied around her waist, and an umbrella is resting against the leg of the stylish glass table she’s seated at alone, for although it’s mid-June, London is a city made of clouds and rain. A laptop is closed in front of her, showing off its sleek gray top – or once-gray top. It’s covered in stickers ranging from books to plants to rainbows, some of them fading and peeling at the edges, and some still shining like new. On the right of the laptop, a steaming cup of chai is leaving a thin, watery mark on the tabletop next to a half-eaten oatmeal raisin cookie, resting on a beautifully painted saucer that was obviously meant for the cup. The woman snaps out of dreaming for a second and, after noticing this fact, places the cookie on top of her computer and the teacup on the saucer. She takes a huge bite of the cookie and, chewing thoughtfully, slides the hairband that’s around her wrist into her palm and then finally into her short chocolate-brown hair. Once it’s in a ponytail, the woman checks her Apple watch and presses her lips together in a distinctly British way. 

She’s late. For what? We may never know, because she stands suddenly, slips her cardigan on, pours the still-warm chai into a paper cup to go, and leaves just as soon as she came in, making the bells above the door jingle cheerily. Our last glimpse of her is of her bright yellow umbrella popping open and disappearing in the sea of bustling black-umbrella Londoners.