Chapter One – The Coffee Crumbles
Nothing but a flood of emotions that flows through a person’s veins, compelling them to feel a connection, it slowly fades away like a memory in the clouds. The amount of pain people experience when they need to let go but they can’t, because they're still waiting for the impossible to happen.
The coffee dropped.
It went all over Jay’s blue light-washed trousers, everyone gazed towards his direction as the pure white ceramic shattered and Echo started to lick the coffee off the floor.
Jay finally came to his senses, he quickly leaned forward and grabbed Echo, sternly telling him to stop. As he leaned back he grabbed a napkin from the side of his gold rimmed saucer and started patting down his trousers.
He quickly called the curly blonde barista and apologised, he felt everyone’s eyes lock onto him as if he was some kind of monster. The barista pointed and said “The toliets are just there, on your left.”
Jay nodded and told Echo to sit he hesitantly took himself to the men’s bathroom, he turned on the tap, as the water gushed down Jay started to stare into the mirror, wondering why he just blackout like that. He splashed some water on his face, grabbed the thin tissues and began dabbing his face with it. Looking down he saw his coffee stained trousers, he grabbed more tissues and tried to wipe off the stains.
He finally came to the conclusion that it was no longer cleanable, he nervously walked towards the toilet door. Everyone centred themselves back to their tables as he opened the door, a sharp chill ran down Jay’s spine. He sluggishly walked to the Café counter,
Jay stumbling on his words “Hi, er… can I have er…. medium cappuccino, a homemade brownie and a butter flapjack”
The barista trying to keep in her laughter, replied “Listen it’s okay, it is the morning and these things happen. That’ll be seven fifty.” Jay smiled while moving his gaze from her lush-hazel eyes, pulled out his contactless card and swiped it on the reader.
The barista smiled widely and started to prepare his meal.
Jay headed over to Echo, his furry companion; Echo was an eight-year-old husky malamute with thick black and iron-grey fur coat. He has always been big cuddly teddy-bear ever since Jay was fifteen, he has never left his side; wherever Jay goes you can bet Echo is there.
Jay started to gently scratch Echo's ears, this made him curl around exposing his belly prompting Jay to rub his furry belly vigorously. With the sheer excitement, his tongue plopped out his mouth hitting the floor. As Jay turned around he saw that the barista had nearly finished, he took his camera from the table and headed towards the large oak door at the entrance. As he reached the door he called Echo over and told him to sit down next to the door; using him as a door stopper.
“Sir, do you want me to bring this outside for you?” the barista boldly shouted as Jay parked Echo near the door.
“Er…sure, thank you!” Jay replied hesitantly
Jay and Echo took a seat near the very corner [WHEN LOCATION HAS BEEN SET DESCRIBE VIEW]. As the barista brought the food over, Jay caught a glimpse of her nametag.
“Thank you, Layla.” Jay said with a courageous voice.
Layla replied, “Your welcome…”
Taking a second to realise the barista wanted to know his name, he answered “My name is Jay.”
“Your welcome Jay, if you need anything else just give me a shout.” she replied gleefully.
As Jay started tucking into his meal, across the café shouted, “It’s me, Maya!”
Jay’s eyes darted towards the direction of the cheerful light-hearted female voice but there was no one there, so he continued on with his meal. Echo started to look up with his puppy eyes, begging for food.
“Alright Echo, you only get a little amount of this flapjack, okay pal?” Jay teasingly said as he was dangling a cut of the butter flapjack.
Echo poised himself as Jay dropped the flapjack, the flapjack ricocheted of Echo’s nose and into his mouth as Echo started munching on it the voice came back this time saying, “Come on Echo, let’s play.”
An image of female flashed into Jay’s mind; she was wearing backless floral dress that went down to her knees with bright orange flat shoes. The image started to blur, something was etched onto her skin, some sort of cup.