The Writers' Coffee House

Curled into a corner of an obscure and particular part of an unnamed place there sits a coffee house where only those with published works and death certificates may enter to enjoy the establishment and perceive the world as it bustles around on every side.

Agatha is always the first to arrive, she brings a portable typewriter, a notebook and pen and two bright blue, sparkling eyes. She wants a small, strong coffee with whole milk but no sugar. She takes up the tiny round table in the back corner and will stay there, writing and getting hourly-refills until closing time. Once, the waitress asked for an autograph, which she was given unceremoniously and without embarrassment.

Byron comes in, around about ten o’clock, handsome but for the black circles round his eyes and the constant look of pain on his face caused from either too much of one substance or not enough of another. He orders hot orange juice with lemon and swigs it down along with two aspirin. Sometimes he brings company; sometimes it is a woman and sometimes something else. Generally, if he chooses to stay for another drink, he’ll have iced-coffee, unable to stomach anything hot that he fears may bring back the headache with a vengeance.

Austen and Mary Shelley arrive arm-in-arm, chattering invariably about either ‘society’s view of women’ or the fact they saw a gorgeous man smile on the street outside, depending on the time of the month. They both want a cappuccino and will take up a side-table, facing one another and ignoring all other patrons of the cafe. Here they will start by exchanging witticisms before becoming horribly depressed at the state of their love-lives. After a brief spell of wondering what’s wrong with them they move onto wondering what’s wrong with everyone else and end up giggling like school-girls at their own genius. No one sits near these two, anyone unlucky enough to have encroached on their space before they arrive quickly moves away.

The only person who acknowledges the two women is Arthur, Sir Arthur, that is. He tips his hat to them, having grown up on his mother’s stories of chivalrous knights. He orders an espresso with one sugar and sits at the table by the window. He likes having a view of both the street and the inside of the coffee house, able to both see and observe, two things he is quick to amend the definitions of should anyone suggest them to be one and the same. He unfolds his newspaper and scans through, paying particular attention to the unsolved, seemingly mundane murders that take up little-more than a column somewhere on page thirty-five. He avoids the obituaries, still a little put-out after his least favourite fictional creation was given a long and heart-felt double page spread when he killed him off on Switzerland’s majestic Reichenbach.

Mister Wilde comes in around lunch-time, bringing the sunshine with his smile. He arrives without an overcoat, merely a top hat and a cane that swings in-time to a brisk step, and nods at Sir Arthur who nods back but rarely exchanges words. He wants a latte, two sugars and whipped cream on top and as it’s being prepared he’ll make a joke about the latest fashion before taking up the large, comfortable arm chair in the very centre of the room, the most visible spot that does not face the ghastly curtains that shadow the windows.

Edgar Poe is an odd one, people don’t avoid him and he doesn’t avoid them, at least not purposefully. He just seems to repel others with a force as invisible as gravity and twice as strong. He orders a coffee or a tea or whatever comes to mind, it never matters as he doesn’t actually drink it. It just sits on the corner of his table, slowly cooling and then congealing as his pen scratches away at a notebook of rough paper. At the end of the day, he’ll rip most of the pages out and leave them in the cup of cold liquid, convinced that they’re too awful to even attempt to edit. Occasionally, he thinks something is just grim enough that his publisher might want it, these are the moments when he’ll drain the cup, still unaware of what he has ordered, and dash out, usually wearing someone else’s hat, giddy with excitement but not wanting to be seen as such in public.

Virgil and Homer enter together with Homer always one step ahead. He gets the table whilst Virgil gets the drinks, always a pot of tea and two feta cheese salads. Virgil seems to hang off every word his companion speaks, making sensitive and thoughtful additions to the conversation that attract dear old Oscar’s attention.

Wilde once mentioned that he’d studied the two men at Oxford, at this, Virgil glanced at his friend before looking both proud and a little worn out. Homer just rolled his eyes over his drink.

Capote has steamed milk, soya. Apparently he dislikes all forms of caffeinated drinks, and insists upon leaving an overly-generous tip for the bar-staff which would be appreciated were it not done in a manner meant to attract as much attention as possible. Sometimes, when in a black and contemplative mood, he’ll sit by himself and smoke femininely-thin cigarettes, other times he’ll sit with Wilde and the two will complement each other and themselves and chuckle at another’s expense.

Bronte arrives looking tired. She wants a tall coffee with a small amount of milk. She takes up a table that allows her to divide her attention between the landscape that can be viewed outside the window and glancing over at Lord George Gordon, trying to pluck up the Cathy-like courage she’d need to strike up a conversation with him. Always hidden in her bag is a copy of his ‘Don Juan’ which she hopes one day to have signed, she just hasn’t managed it yet.

Blake is sat alone at a table, but no one really remembers when he arrived. He’s muttering to himself about something or other, but again, no one takes any notice. He ordered a simple coffee with milk about an hour and half ago, but the waitress has forgotten and, luckily, so has he.

Sylvia comes in stalking Miss Dickinson who looks most perturbed at the annoyance of having someone acting the part of her shadow. Emily wants a green tea followed by a black coffee and nearly changes her order when Miss Plath requests the exact same, muttering something about the reflection of the soul and the espresso machine pouring her destiny. Emily is careful to find a table with only on seat and Sylvia is careful to find an empty chair to pull up as close to her idol as possible, without actually being near enough to use the table, making her seem far more tragic than her poetry ever managed.

Beckett orders a short macchiato in a ‘to-go’ cup and looks a little as if he is waiting for someone, but either he’s just a generally anxious-looking individual or his expected companion never arrives, bringing Beckett back to complete the same routine day after day, either out of habit or just as a lack of anything better to do.

James Barrie wants a decaf mocha, commonly known by other adults as a hot chocolate. He also wants cake because his wife never lets him have any at home. He’ll happily spend his entire day sat with a serene expression, sometimes striking up a casual conversation with Doyle about the theatre or the arts or, generally, anything except literature.

Charles Dickens enters and everyone makes a point to avoid eye-contact and speak a little louder than they were before, trying to put him off starting up on any subject. Anyone who gets stuck behind him in the cue immediately regrets not arriving three minutes earlier as he is able to take up at least twenty minutes ordering nothing more fancy than a jug of tap water and a plate of unbuttered toast.

Leroux comes in looking for a particular kind of coffee blend, only to discover that it isn’t available. He begins grumbling about the British and very quickly moves onto his real intention of displaying his outrage for the modern-day ‘composer’ who’s had the gall to write a musical sequel to his masterpiece.

Browning comes in and is on first-name terms with everyone except Byron whom he thinks is a cad, as such, Bronte dismisses him as being a puling chicken of a man and he imagines she’d be rather like his lady in the laboratory if she got the chance. Robert orders an Americano and flashes a smile after making some pun about the Americans whilst it’s being brewed.

The other Robert, Robert Stevenson, comes in looking one of two ways; he has days where he is perfectly amiable and others when he is best left alone. Doyle, a doctor by trade, thinks he probably registers somewhere on the bipolar scale but, as a specialist of eyes, he doesn’t feel it’s his place to point it out. After ordering a herbal tea or a triple-shot espresso, depending on what state of mind he’s in, he’ll generally sit with Dickens, simply because no one else is that keen on him and old Charles never grumbles at company as it gives him a chance to talk considerably more than if he were sat alone.

Shakespeare enters and flashes a rather charming smile to everyone in the building. No one talks to him much but everyone smiles back, aware that they envy but not dislike the Bard. He wants a glass of brandy and when he is told it’s too early in the afternoon for such things he simply feigns shock at the thought of being the afternoon in order to announce that he has been awake for almost sixty hours and has just finished writing something fantastic. Everyone, against their own will, is eager to hear about it, but they all pretend not to be.

Finally Reverend Dodgson, also known as Lewis Carroll, enters and orders a pink strawberry milkshake. Everyone takes this as their cue to leave as quickly as possible. Barrie contemplates telling him how much he loved the character of the Queen, but doesn’t want to get a reputation for speaking to the wrong sort of fellow, so simply follows the others out, leaving Blake, who’s quietly asleep in his saucer, sleeping in the corner.