Unity: The Union Jack Coffee Shop

Part of a series in which I flesh out an imaginary town in Connecticut. Weird things happen there, not that the residents would ever acknowledge anything out of the ordinary.

The Union Jack Coffee Shop is at the end of one of the few quaint streets left in downtown Unity. Which quaint street is a matter of debate: every resident has a different set of directions there, based on a different set of landmarks from certain time periods. "Well, you take the left where the old Presbyterian church used to be, not the one with the blue side door, but the one with the big green one, and then you cut through the park on Church Street..." Of course, the fact that the coffee shop has no fixed address and isn't on any maps or in any phone books helps with the confusion. Nevertheless, if you aim right and your need for coffee is true, you almost always end up where you need to be.

The exterior is plain brick, weathered to a reddish-brown shade. There is a large glass window with the words UNION JACK COFFEE SHOP printed in black, along with the flag itself underneath. The door is an unremarkable dark brown wood, though the occasional visitor reports a stinging sensation from the plain metal door handle. Even from the outside, passersby can smell good rich coffee and freshly baked bread.

When you pull open the door, the small, silver bells inside the door give a deep ring, far deeper than their size would imply. The floor is tiled in dove gray, the walls and ceiling warm wooden beams. The first thing anyone sees is the wooden counter and the chalkboard behind it, proclaiming menu and prices. At one end of the counter is an ancient cash register. There is a handwritten sign taped to it: CASH ONLY. The tape is ancient; often the sign falls off during rigorous transactions and a customer has to return it to its rightful place. Otherwise, the counter has neat white trays of baked goods; irregularly shaped, so you know they're handmade. The coffee machine and mugs live on the shelf underneath the chalkboard. The mugs are irregularly shaped, faded to shades of dull pastel.

There is always a sullen student at work behind the counter, with appropriate amount of facial piercings and small town ennui. The owner is a hearty old man named Jack, though he isn't British. He is usually occupied with something small and industrious, like sweeping the floor or fixing a hinge or carving another set of chessmen for the coffee shop's sole chessboard. He knows everyone's order by heart, though he leaves the coffee-making to the sullen student.

The light in the Union Jack Coffee Shop brims over with warmth, like someone's aesthetic ideal of a coffee shop. There are several squashy red chairs arranged around a circular coffee table. The chessboard has the place of honor nearest the window and closest to the rattling heater. There are a few small wooden tables with wooden chairs scattered across the floor, but the rest of the decor is mostly books. There are books stuffed onto countless bookshelves built into the walls. They're nice books, pages aged to pale yellow, covers softened with age but still clean. The books at the Union Jack Coffee Shop are not for sale, and if enterprising clients try to smuggle any out, they'll find their bags empty when they check. On rare occasions, customers will arrive home with precisely the book they needed, whether or not they were searching for it. Who can say why? Certainly not Jack.