Ground Control loses touch with Major Tom...

Some folk are easy to please. All they want for breakfast is to be left alone.

To see in the day with as little fuss as possible.

To welcome the next fourteen or so hours in the pleasant company of a small black hole.

All they want is a region of space and time where all complicated thinking is put on hold, orbiting the event horizon of their mind.

A place where they can be safe. Untouchable. Where they can relax, breathe easy…and listen to the sound of absolutely nothing bad happening.

Where they can maybe, just once, see something good.

Somewhere like here.

This morning in the coffee shop Ground Control had lost all contact with Major Tom, who is sitting in a quiet corner staring into space. Investigating his interior cosmos.

Trying to explore the sights of his own personal universe.

A suited and booted caffeine-loving urban spaceman. Frequent flyer. Gravity defier. An off-world, inter-planetary thinker with zero stress relations and just one hiccup in his otherwise solitary existence.

The hiccup wears a short red dress and has hips that can make a dying man reach for an oxygen mask for one last gasp of pure air.

The hiccup promises one final ride of the merry-go-round on a bicycle made for two. Only today, this bicycle has one passenger.

There he sits. Lights off. Solar engine powered down. All movement reduced to the bare minimum. No warp-speed.

Waiting…waiting.

She was here yesterday. Two tables and a billion miles away. He sent a signal across the emptiness. Hoping for a glimmer in the dark. Catching nothing but static.

Maybe today…maybe tomorrow.

Little Italy looks on from behind the bar. She’s seen it all before. She’ll see it all again.

Close encounters of every damned kind. Too close for comfort. Too far away to connect. Everyone too scared to make the first move.

So Little Italy does.

She looks at the box on the wall and somewhere inside the box number 57 floats down and lands on terra firma.

The Curtains open. Step up Simon. Step up Garfunkel. Step up the Sound of Silence.

Life isn’t about pulling back. Life is about reaching out. Little Italy knows this to be true. Major Tom looks at his empty coffee cup.

Time for a refill…

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The above is an extract from my book Love & Coffee (available from all good Amazons).

It's about the lives and loves of the customers in a city centre coffee shop.

And it's about the woman who takes care of them.

You'll find Love & Coffee (along with all my other books, Ad Lib, Ad Hoc, Ad Infinitum, and Heaven Help Us) waiting for you to fall in love with, any time of the day or night. Right here...

Love & Coffee: https://amzn.to/28IWaHq

Ad Lib: https://amzn.to/2kd4LKf.

Ad Hoc: https://amzn.to/2Nx8GL8

Ad Infinitum: https://amzn.to/3pof7Uq

Heaven Help Us: https://amzn.to/2nkQ1Jk

So grab a coffee, grab a chair, and grab a sneaky peek.

Then grab a copy for Christmas.