Episode Four
380 Words
On day 2,190, the chairs were different.
Still two. Still by the poetry shelf. But one was smaller, with a booster seat duct-taped to it.
“I hate 6:12am,” Juno announced. She was six, fierce, and wearing David’s old coffee-stained apron as a cape. “It’s too early and the city is stupid.”
Maya poured half a cup of warm milk, no sugar. “The city isn’t stupid. It’s just honest. And honest can be rude before sunrise.”
David handed Juno the milk. “Your mom used to think 6:12am was stupid too. Until she met a guy who made bad jokes about ghosts.”
“I still think the jokes are stupid,” Maya said, but she was smiling into her thermos.
Juno kicked her legs. “Why do we come here? We have a kitchen. It has a _toaster_.”
Maya looked at David. David looked at the shelf. _Selected Neruda_ still sat there, spine faded, pages soft from two decades of hands.
“Because,” Maya said, “before you, before the bookstore, your dad and I were really good at drinking coffee alone.”
“Ew,” Juno said. “That’s a boring love story.”
“It is,” David agreed. He pulled a Sharpie from his pocket and uncapped it. “Which is why we keep editing it.”
He knelt and wrote on the leg of Juno’s chair: _Day 2,190. Juno thinks 6:12am is stupid. She’s not wrong._
Maya took the Sharpie. On her chair: _Day 2,190. Still no sugar. Still not alone._
They both looked at Juno. She rolled her eyes, grabbed the pen, and scrawled on the poetry shelf itself: _Day 2,190. I’m here now. Deal with it._
At 6:13am, the door creaked. An old man shuffled in, insomniac eyes, shaking hands.
“We’re not open,” Juno said, very serious.
“We’re never open,” David told him. “But we’ve got coffee. No sugar. You drinking alone?”
The man sat in the ghost chair. The one they still kept empty, just in case.
Maya poured him a cup. Juno passed him the thermos lid.
Outside, Kampala started to wake up. Inside, it was 6:12am again.
Still honest. Still theirs. Just with one more chair.
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- Writer
