Coffee Shop Encounter

Chapter 1

I had a bit of fun with this one. It has a touch of the ridiculous about it, I must admit, but hopefully people can still enjoy it. The start is slow, but from there it goes from zero to a hundred fast.

Carpe diem!

I stared blearily at the erratically scrawled message on the bathroom mirror. After a few seconds the memories started to materialise, pushing through the fog inside my head. That's right. I'd scrawled it there hastily late last night in a moment of drunken clarity. You know what I mean. Those moments where an idea makes perfect sense and you wonder why sober you had never thought of it. I'd written it using some lipstick I'd dug out of a drawer in the bathroom cabinet. I wondered now whose it was and how it came to be there. Probably a relic from a past girlfriend I guess. I shook my head. That wasn't the point. Drunk me had left sober me a message, and now I had to decide whether to listen to the half cut rambling bastard, or do what I'd been doing every week for the last six months and pussy out.

Carpe Diem!

I guess I should introduce myself properly. My names Tyson, Tyson Jones. But everyone calls me Ty. I'm an accountant at a large firm in the middle of the city. For the last six months I've been buying my coffees from a small cafe six blocks away from where I live. Every morning I make the long walk down to pick up an overpriced flat white before crossing the street to wait at the bus stop. Must be some amazing coffee, huh? Wrong! The coffee is mediocre at best.

You might ask why would someone walk six blocks for some mediocre coffee? Most of you have probably already guessed why.

A girl.

And not just any girl.

Her name was Shazza.

I know, you're probably thinking "no one has every waxed lyrical about a girl called Shazza" and I may be the first, but here goes.

Shazza is the girl at the checkout who takes my order each day. She's about five foot five with long brown hair and the brightest blue eyes I've ever seen. Her body is slim and toned. Somehow she manages to make a polo shirt, pencil skirt and cap look like a sexy ensemble. She seems to have an aura about her, a certain energy. For those few moments each day, it's as if time stands still and unfortunately so does my brain, as I turn into the most incoherent imbecile to ever to walk the planet. Shazza doesn't seem to care though, she just laughs and smiles as I stumble along.

I paused to look at the mirror a moment longer.

"Fuck it."

I then proceeded to follow my normal strategy which was to defer any important decision until the last possible moment and pray that in that moment I will be struck with a bolt of clarity or reason.

Twenty minutes later I found myself back in front of the mirror. I'd showered, shaved and necked a berocca by this point. I looked past the words, examining my reflection. I tried to psych myself up. I mean look, I'm no body builder, but I'm in decent shape. I have short blonde hair and light blue eyes. If I'm being honest I don't think I'm too hard on the eyes. The problem is that compared to the goddess who serves me coffee I look like a bag of potatoes.

I sighed as I rolled the sleeves of my white dress shirt back past my elbows. I had on my best pair of tanned dress pants and a brown pair of RM Williams.

My eyes focused in on the words again. Suddenly I was filled with a surge of energy.

"Fuck it!" I said out loud. "You miss all the shots you don't take."

I'd been walking in every day and passing up my opportunity. Well not today. Today I'm shooting my shot.

I grabbed my wallet, phone and keys off the kitchen table and headed out the door with my head held high and a sense of purpose to my stride.