Fiction
Find Your Future
The gentle October sun sprawled through the lobby of Mitchell’s Coffee House. The clouds of the Astoria sky rolled in and out, periodically casting shadows as if it were closing time at 2 P.M. Summer oak floors groaned, chair cushions were stained, and the green floral wallpaper was faded and peeling at the corners. Though the building was rarely busy and waned on a lonesome street downtown, the plethora of well-kept flowers, succulents, and various other plants made the cafe feel evergreen.
A white wooden coffee bar overlooked the small round steel tables lining the windowed walls. That particular afternoon, three tables were occupied, one of which being the usual weekday post for a struggling playwright.
Logan Tucker proceeded to stare at his computer screen for so long that it went dark from inactivity, and he could see his reflection in the blackness. A chestnut complexioned face, paled from exhaustion, stared back at him with dark circles under its even darker eyes. He sported overgrown black curls on his head that were starting to exemplify the 1970’s a little too closely for his liking. In fact, he hadn’t been too confident in his appearance at all lately. Logan tried to forget about the grey hair he plucked from his mustard button-up that morning.
He couldn’t believe the difficulty he was having with his script. Discouraged, he closed his laptop, sighed, and sauntered over to the coffee bar.
“Hey Don, can I get a latte to go please?”
“Another? What’s that, three in the last two hours?” Don asked with his scratchy Southern drawl. He turned around to face Logan while drying a clean coffee mug. Don was of a shorter stature, maybe 5’9” in his biker boots. His skin, nearly raisined by the Texas sun before moving to Oregon, was tattooed with mosaics on both arms. He wore his long grey hair in a braid down his back and kept his beard shaved to a stubble.
“I know, I’m just having trouble writing this play,” Logan said, rubbing his left temple. “I’ve been awake since 5 A.M. trying to come up with simple dialogue.”
“Well what’s this one about, chief?” He set down the mug and flung the dish cloth over his shoulder.
“It’s a period piece about the lookout stationed on the Titanic and how he coped after the accident.”
“Jesus H. Christ, that’s dark.”
“I know, that’s the point. They said if he had some binoculars up there with him, the disaster could have been avoided completely. It’s just hard to place myself in his shoes, ya know?”
“Damn.” Don scrunched his brows together and scratched his face. “Well I don’t know how you fancy writer types find inspiration, but there’s an antique shop a few blocks east.” Don grabbed a white paper cup and began fiddling with the coffee machines that hissed and beeped. “Way Back When, I think it’s called. My buddy Fred owns it. Ancient as the pyramids, but a real nice fella. Maybe it’ll help you feel… I don’t know, old?” He poured steaming coffee into the paper cup while Logan chuckled and popped a lid on top.
“Thanks. Maybe I’ll check it out,” Logan said as he reached into his black leather satchel to find his black leather wallet. Don held his hand up to him.
“On me, boss. Go get that play written. You gotta be successful so you don’t end up owning a dead coffee shop. Plus, I need somewhere to take the missus on date night besides the bar. She says she needs more ‘culture’ than Duffy’s can offer. Can’t imagine what she means.”
“You’re truly the best, Don.”
“I know, Tucker.” Logan took the coffee and headed out the dinging door.
The antique store would have been bright inside if the windows weren’t cluttered with chairs and tables stacked high to save room. A crystal lamp reflected the thin beams of light poking through, gleaming like small orbs floating around Logan. He was alone in the store, save for the bald man (who he assumed to be Fred) asleep at the front counter snoring with his thick bifocals on the tip of his sizeable nose and a newspaper in his hand.
The air was damp and smelled of old books and cigars. He could hear the vintage jukebox playing “Witchcraft” by Frank Sinatra somewhere in the opposite corner. Large pieces of furniture were scattered among each turn of the shop with smaller trinkets displayed here and there. Porcelain dolls in Sunday dresses, intricate China sets, and dusty framed paintings were abundant as Logan walked slowly and delicately on the ornate rugs that created a winding path through the store.
At the next turn, Logan’s eyes landed upon a glistening object sat in a box on a small side table. He felt drawn to it like he was being pulled forward, chest first, by an invisible force. It was a pair of early twentieth century style binoculars with aged brass barrels and a black focus wheel. Despite the rusted metal and scratched lenses, they still had a glowing luster to them. Logan faced a painting of a sailboat across the store behind Fred’s counter and held the binoculars to his eyes to see if they still worked well.
Instead of a marine scene, Logan saw a silver tea kettle on a stove. Confused, he lowered the binoculars and searched for the kettle, but to no avail. Only the old man in front of the old artwork. He lifted the binoculars again and examined closer. The tea kettle was taken off the stove, and a white dish rag fell onto the burner. A small flame caught the rag then erupted with a roar.
Logan took the binoculars from his eyes in a panic looking for the fire. There was no stove, no tea kettle, no burning rag across from him. Just a painting of a boat. His heart was beating fast as he tried to slow his breath. He inspected the binoculars in his hand. What the hell? Is this some kind of kaleidoscope? Projector toy?
“Whatch’ya got there?”
Logan jumped and squealed like a shar pei getting stepped on. He turned to see Fred standing behind him.
“Jesus, you scared me,” He said, clutching his chest.
“Sorry, friend. Looking to buy?”
With the binoculars secure in his satchel, Logan rushed back to Mitchell’s trying to catch Don before he locked up for the day. Maybe he could make some sense of what Logan saw. Rounding the block, he spotted Don’s black 83’ FLT Tour Glide parked on the street and the bike’s owner closing the door to the cafe.
“Hey, Don!” He waved back before searching his pockets for the key. Logan approached him and pulled his new purchase from his bag. He started speaking as fast as his breath would allow. “Look at these binoculars I found at Way Back When. They-”
“Could have been on the Titanic. Nice find, chief!”
“Yeah, but that’s not even the weird part.” Logan took a breath as Don’s face twisted in puzzlement. “I looked through them, but I didn’t see what was in front of me. I saw-” From the corner of his eye, Logan noticed a little light flicker through the window of the cafe. A small glow. It was beyond the entryway to the kitchen on Don’s stove next to a silver tea kettle. “Fire!” Logan yelled and Don looked in the direction he was pointing.
“Oh shit!” Don swung the dinging door open and scrambled to find the fire extinguisher beneath the counter. The flame grew. The fire alarm blared as smoke billowed from the dish towel. After yanking the extinguisher from the cabinet in a frenzy of french presses and ceramic mugs, Don pulled the pin and showered the blaze with white foam just as it flared upward.
All Logan could do was marvel at the scene. Did that really just happen or was this some insane fever dream? After the flame was doused and the smoke began to dissipate, Don used an oven mitt to carefully turn off the heat. All that was damaged under the extinguishing agent was a charred cloth and a ruined burner. “Shut off the alarm before the signal goes through to the fire department, would ya?”
“On it.” Logan found the cancel button on the security panel on the wall while Don grabbed a baking sheet and waved it in front of the smoke alarm on the ceiling until it fell silent.
“Oh, God. Thank you, Logan,” Don said short of breath. “If it weren’t for you, I would’ve walked away. Wouldn’t have known til the building was down.” Logan stood aghast staring at the stove.
“That’s… that’s what I saw in the binoculars,” he confessed, pacing and wringing his hands. “The kettle, the rag, the fire, all of it. It was like a vision.” Don looked at him, flustered and confused.
“What are you on about?” Logan held out the binoculars to Don who swiped them and brought them to his eyes. He looked at the stove, the coffee bar, and out of the window before handing them back to Logan. “Seem like normal lenses to me, boy. I’m not seein’ any visions.”
“Let me see.” Logan took them back and halted his pace.
“Maybe you just have some sorta freak intuition that saves peoples’ asses?” Hesitantly looking through the barrels again, Logan saw no scene of the future. Just a close up of a sweaty and concerned Don.
“No, I swear! I was-… I just-” He looked into the binoculars a few more times, shaking or hitting them with the heel of his hand in between hoping to stir up whatever magic he saw in them before. Nothing. “I promise I’m not crazy.”
“I know, boy. Let’s get out of here, I need fresh air.” They walked out of the cafe, and Don locked the door peering into the kitchen entryway away to make sure he didn’t miss a spark or the beginning of some other ruinous accident. Logan had never felt so bewildered. “Can’t believe I left the blasted burner on.” Did he discover an enchanted object? “I’ll call the insurance office tomorrow.” Was he psychic? “I should probably order a new stove, too.” Did he black out in the antique shop and have a hell of a coincidental dream? Logan must not have been hiding his astonishment, because Don lightly shook his shoulder and said “You’re not mad. Probably a sign from God, or whoever’s lookin’ down on us.”
“Yeah… maybe,” Logan muttered, shaking his head. He had no other words. Don straddled his motorcycle and clipped the strap of his helmet. The bike rumbled to life, and Don turned back to Logan.
“Chin up, Tucker! You saved me a hell of a lot of trouble today, just focus on the bright side.” He revved his engine and drove out onto the road. Logan began to walk down the quiet street toward his apartment complex when he heard the blare of a fire truck coming around the corner.
The hefty vehicle swung around the block taking much too wide of a turn and leaning into the lane of oncoming traffic just as Don was approaching the intersection.
“Don!” Logan yelled in horror preparing in a split second for the worst. The truck and the bike swerved harshly at the same time, avoiding a crash by the width of Don’s middle finger. In the wake of diverged disaster, the driving fireman lost control of the thundering vehicle. Logan saw his panicked face through the windshield while trying to turn the wheel.
The fire truck veered right and couldn’t stable itself before crashing into the quaint coffee house unfortunately in its path.
