Excerpt: In A Coffee Shop

The morning is still young, the sun barely above the horizon, and it’s still early enough to realize that your eyes cannot open completely. You cautiously step into the coffee shop located in the corner of the strip mall and silently think, First time’s a charm.
Breathe in.
The scent of coffee fills your lungs, seeming to coat them with the clinging, luxurious aroma. Espresso machines hum, cash registers ring, timers repeatedly go off, their shrill alarms startling the employees out of their inadvertent dazes. A line of customers starts at the counter and proceeds past the bakery case to the newspaper stand. You take your place in line, your eyes drawn to everything in this quaint little café.
The setting is warm, inviting. The walls are wood paneling with a six-inch ledge halfway up and a bench for seating attached to the paneling. The portions of the walls above the wood are painted a darker sage green. Wooden poles and beams in the center of the dining room create a stick-like “house” of sorts for an interesting decoration. A fake fireplace, broken for years now, though you know nothing of this, is stuck in the middle, two leather chairs and a small wooden table placed in front to create a family room effect.
You stand on your toes to see above the heads of the people in line before you as you attempt to search further into the building. The tiled floor cuts off, turning into replica wood; two long conference tables, seating six, sit waiting to be used by a college student or a businessman. Behind these, there are more tables as well as a clean chalkboard and a fake stuffed bear head mounted on the wall. Cute, you comment mentally.
“Good morning, how are you?” the employee asks you brightly as you finally make it to the counter. He is a younger man, mid-twenties, with a bright smile that should be impossible at this early in the morning.
“Great,” you absently reply. Your eyes scanning the vast menus for a long moment before you decide on just a simple coffee. Your total is punched into the cash register and you pay the price without a second thought, dropping the petty change into the ceramic mug of a tip jar.
Your coffee is quickly handed to you with a warm, “Thank you and have a wonderful day!” from the employee. As you walk to the mixing station by the front door, you pause briefly to observe the front corner of the store: a cozy little area, including three tables (one which holds a lamp on its surface), two more leather chairs, and a comfortable-looking couch. Interesting. And here you had never thought a coffee shop could be anything more than a simple stop on the way to work.
Add in the sugars and creams to your coffee, stir for a few seconds, toss the stirrer into the garbage. Breathe out. The cool, crisp morning air seems strangely distant compared to the warm, delectable atmosphere of the coffee shop. Shrugging this off, you return to your car, set the coffee in the cup holder, and drive away without a second thought.
The lives of those who attend these shops daily, the ones who become known as The Regulars, slowly begin to intertwine, yet you are oblivious. They’re just part of the crowd, that young crowd that hangs around in those coffee shops all day long.