Escape the Grind

Day in, day out, people floated by her. Strangers with only cursory familiarity, aiming for a quick fix and then poof, off into the world. She knew the routine well enough.

Grind, pull, pour.

Grind, pull, pour.

Grind, pull, pour.

Elisha's daily grind was wearing her down. She was sleep walking through life and no amount of caffeine could wake her up.

She rolled over. The clock blinked 5:45am, mocking her. She was late. Elisha ran to catch the bus, and just made it into the coffee shop as the big clock ticked past 6:00am. Whew. The morning started like any other and was utterly uneventful.

Grind, pull, pour.

Grind, pull, pour.

Grind, pull, pour.

She looked up. It was already 8. Elisha liked the mornings where the hours disappeared.

* * *

She wasn't sure when he'd arrived, but the old man had been sitting at the end of the bar for hours. The café was located in a pretty young, hip part of town, and the man's sharp, black suit was a dead giveaway that he wasn't a native. As they were about to close up, Miranda asked Elisha to clear the man out. She wasn't surprised by the request. Miranda always made sure that someone else got the hardest jobs.

As she walked up to him, he spoke her name. It made sense, Elisha thought, since they all wore nametags.

Until she remembered that they didn't; that they had never worn name tags.

How does he know my name? she wondered.

"I know a great deal more about you than you know yourself," the old man crumbled, as if in answer to her unspoken question.

"And I'm here to tell you all of it: about a destiny far bigger than one coffee shop."

* * *

She threw her shoulder into it and finally managed to shift the last bag of coffee beans. Behind it, where there should have been a wall, there was instead a small door. Everything else in the storeroom was white and steel or grey and concrete, but this door was red-red with a brass knob. Without thinking, she reached out and grabbed the knob.

She turned it, and the door swung open. Light poured out into the dingy storeroom, and she suddenly felt herself falling forward.

* * *

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