Concrete Dialogues

The Applecross Dome Coffee Shop

11:53am. Having rolled out of bed only ten minutes ago, I’ve timed my breakfast escapade perfectly. A civilised sleep-in for a cold morning and access to the best seat in the wood-panelled café; an armchair nestled by the doorway, its leather warmed by the sunlight seeping in through the window. A sullen jazz singer broods over the speakers as a crabby teenager plonks a latte on my table. I sit alone. All my friends have been at their desk since 9am, ticking off their objectives: a job, a house, a wife, a boat. But I don’t regret my late start to the day because these are the waking hours.

Twelve o’clock ticks by. The doors of outside buildings open with increasing regularity as people stumble onto the sidewalks. Risely Street is swollen with more pedestrians than cars and the short skirts bobbing along with the tide to distract me from a now cold drink.

I am a one-man welcome party for the lunch crowd. Business suits and gaggles of Mums steering prams are eager to share a smile. They all pause on the creaky floorboards to scout a table or spot a friend. Customers rise in waves to attract and greet their friends and draw them in with a flurry of handshakes and polite kisses. The air becomes laden with coffee and the growl of the coffee grinder. Conversation bounces off the walls at fever pitch. And I realise someone has changed the music to an excitable flamenco guitarist as heads seemingly bob along with the music. Each table is an island of matching work uniforms or family resemblance. Middle-aged women become immersed in frumpy armed conversation. The suits raise eyebrows over frothy contemplations. An elderly couple study a shared menu. And the crabby teenager spends her lunch break in the corner glued to her mobile phone. I lean into the pool of light flooding my table and the armchair wraps around me.

When I look up again the tables are strewn with the skeletal remains of salads and burgers. The coffee grinder has dulled to a drone. The elderly couple pick over scraps on their plate and there are more cars than people on the street. The teenager closes her phone and switches the music back to the wounded singer. I assume she’s grumpy because she just slept through the waking hours.