*Knock. Knock. Knock. *

I’m patient, knowing she isn’t expecting me yet. I’ve barely slept the past two nights, but the excitement keeps my body ticking over. 5:53am was when I decided that sleep had evaded me once again, and so the sun and I both rolled out of bed. We made our way across London, the sun spreading more warmth and joy in one morning than I might ever in my lifetime. Now, its rays’ peek around the glass towers of the city to reach this tiny alley and shine perfectly on the bags under my eyes. Beyond the blue door I hear the locks being methodically unlocked.

“Josie? You know you don’t start for another hour and a half, yes?” Mae pokes her head out of the door and checks both ends of the alley.

“I know, I just thought you might need extra help? Monday mornings…y’know?” My last few words are stifled by a yawn. Mae stares at me. Why do I even bother trying to lie to her. Deflated, I tell her the truth. “I didn’t really sleep well, or at all, last night. Or the night before. Not really sure what to do with this early of a morning, so I thought maybe a coffee would help me.”

Mae’s eyes soften and her trademark smile appears. “Modern?” A small laugh escapes me.

“Sounds perfect.”.

…

Mae refuses my help until my shift starts. She tried threatening me with no pay for working outside my shift times, but I didn’t mind. When I tried going behind the bar to help her restock, she wailed and waved her arms at me. So now, I’m banished to sit, relax, and drink my modern coffee. It’s actually quite sweet and a welcome change of parental pace. Whenever I’m even slightly unwell and my parents find out, I’m pulled aside, interrogated for my symptoms, charged with any number of illnesses, and placed under house arrest until I recover. Mae has done what I never knew I wanted – she’s cared for me as child and not as a patient. I wonder if Mae has kids.

The imposed respite has refreshed my mind. My body is still struggling from the lack of rest but my suggestion of a makeshift bed in the walk in fridge was denied, so I will have to power through. We open in 5 minutes and I’m nervous, more nervous than I was for my interview. The rational and emotional sides of my brain are wrestling – In the red corner; rationality. Featherweight contender of knowing I have been serving time travellers for a whole week with no problems. In the blue corner; Emotion. Super Heavyweight champion of imagining serving actual time travellers. What if I upset one of them, and they go back and stop me from getting this job? Or even worse, being born? It’s a brutal one-sided match and I don’t want to watch it anymore.

Fifteen minutes after we open, the first customer walks in. A man, mid-thirties with black curly hair. His nose is hooked, and his lips are plump. He has a body shape and muscular build unlike I’ve ever seen – built for rugged war if I had to guess. The clothes he has on do not suit him, but I don’t think any modern clothes would. As soon as he approaches to order, I thankfully go into autopilot and manage to serve him without upsetting him.

The day progresses nicely without any major issues, apart from running out of Modern coffee beans. The featherweight contender is actually putting up a fight. Mae has been pretty preoccupied today dealing with an old lady I see in here all the time. An older gentleman walks in and up to the counter. He has a long grey scraggly beard that connects to his hair, which wraps around the sides of the head leaving the top bald.

“Could I please just have a glass of water?” He asks in an unfamiliar accent.

“Of course!” That look and that accent is killing me, where is he from? More importantly, when is he from? I guide the glass across the bar, “500BC?”.

“Sorry, say again?” His eyes flash to Mae. He heard me.

“I’m guessing you’re from 500BC. Greece?” I raise my eyebrows at him. I haven’t let go of the glass of water. He inflates his chest and releases a deep sigh while re-reading the sign above me.

“I- You know we mustn’t discuss information of this kind.” My hand releases the glass. He takes it but doesn’t move. His brain is shovelling coal faster than it can burn it. If smoke could physically plume from his ears, it would. “Incorrect. Correct.”

“Incorrect? Oh. OH. 400BC? 600BC? But I got Greece right, right?” My heart is trying to burst out of my chest. We share mischievous smile.

“Correct. Incorrect. Correct.” My brain retraces the question I asked.

“Woah. So, wait, do you know Hippocrates!?” I say a little too loud.

“You meet a man from Greece, or - Ancient Greece to you, and automatically assume he is friendly with Hippocrates?” He raises an eyebrow at me and maintains it before he surprises me with a quiet chuckle. “I joke. As a matter of fact, I do know him.” The featherweight contender has been pinned; the Super heavyweight champion holds the belt still.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

“Would you please mind telling me what he was… or is, like?” Every one of my toes are wiggling in excitement.

“An amazing man. The presence he commands by simply speaking is unlike anything I had ever seen, and still unlike anything I have yet to see. A true shame that it is I who can travel and not he, as the theories he would be able to conjure with your modern medicine would be groundbreaking. I could see the impact he would have on the world long before I could travel. I do miss his camaraderie.” He speaks with a nostalgic, glassy look in his eyes. Strange. He can travel and see him whenever he wants.

“Is everything alright? If I’ve brought up some bad memories, I’m really sorry, we can forget I asked!”.

“Not at all, in fact I’m grateful for the chance to pause and reminisce. However, I must confess that I have not spoken to him for longer than I would like to admit. Knowing his legacy; I both worry that I could interfere with his future findings, and revere him to the point that I cannot build the courage to speak to him.” He stares downward. A single drop of salty water falls from his face into his full glass of ancient spring water.

“Hey,” A quick glance confirms Mae isn’t looking and I place my hand on his shoulder, “Yes, he’s an influential figure in medicine. Yes, he has a people quoting him to this day. But he’s also just a man. A man who threw tantrums as a child, had an awkward teenage phase – if that’s a thing in Ancient Greece – and who has also made mistakes. He has plenty of followers, fans, and fanatics. I’m sure he’d appreciate a friend.”.

His drying eyes look up at me as he exhales all worry from his body and inhales confidence. Standing tall, broad shouldered and smiling he gives me a quick nod and slides the glass of water back to my side of the counter. Sparing another brief look towards Mae – she’s finishing up with the old woman – he mouths a happy ‘thank you’ and exits the café with surprising pace for a man his age.

…

My shift is coming to an end and for the first time since working here – or anywhere – I’m sad about that. I’ve met fascinating people. I don’t think I’ll ever forget, though, that I got to pet an authentic ancient Egyptian cat. Her owner, a gorgeous woman that had short black hair, smooth tan skin and glossy onyx coloured eyes, seemed to love how much I loved her cat. She’s probably the customer I spoke to the least about time travel, we exclusively talked about her cat. This means that either – the cat can also time travel or she can take animals whenever she time travels. How she, and everyone else, time travels is still something I have no theories on. It’s the question they won’t answer.

Both rule 2 and 3 have been air-tight concrete dams. Nobody wants to share how they time travel, at least not with me, and finding someone from the future to break rule 2 with is difficult. Many of the customers I’ve spoken with today have been welcoming questions about their childhood. As soon as I move on to the future, they refuse to tell me about it. I need a person who was born in the future, who had their childhood in the future.

Since I took the leap of breaking rule 1 though, I’ve not served a customer who wasn’t delighted I did. Mae has been equally delighted with the service I’ve been giving, commenting on how happy the customers look. Every element of rule-breaking excited them; the whispering, the exchange of forbidden information, being able to talk about themselves and the unspoken looks we exchanged when Mae walks by. It makes sense that they enjoy rule-breaking considering they break all known laws of physics just by sitting here in this café.

The end of day rush returns normality to the job though, as a line of 5 people form at the counter. I try to control my body as best I can, fighting against the cocktail of sleep deprivation mixed with caffeine overload. Still, through sheer muscle memory, I serve most of the line. The final customer saunters up to the counter. I instantly feel uneasy, and I can hear a low, almost imperceptible droning noise. He has piercing blue eyes, a chiselled jaw, and a bizarre clothing style. A sleeveless satin jacket with a high collar is an unusual combination, to put it nicely. The strangest of all though are what seem to be purposefully placed scars in a line across his arms, face, neck, and just about any skin on show.

“I’ll just get a Pepsi please, nufin’ else.” He says.

“Of course.” I bend to the mini fridge, pull out a Pepsi and do a brief scan of the café on my way back up in search of Mae. Coast is clear. I place the can on the counter, and has he reaches to grab it I playfully slide it towards me, “When are you from?”.

“Y’know I can’t tell ya tha’.” He answers with a chuckle, looks around the café and inches closer. I lean in. “Like I said, I can’t tell ya. But, ain’t nufin up dere that says I can’t show ya.”.

He presses on either side of his little fingertip, and the scars begin to move. The top half of his finger separates mechanically revealing intricate blue glowing machinery. They’re not scars at all; they are the seams to body augmentation. From his finger, a thin rectangle smaller than a fingernail ejects and he catches it. While his finger re-assembles autonomously, he brings the rectangle up to the side of his head where a tiny slit accepts it. I close my mouth after realising it’s been on the floor this entire time.

A string of blue light projects from his eye and stops mid-air. The line opens to for corners and turns into a projected screen that’s playing a video. He turns his head to right and tells me to look. I turn mine left and, with us both now facing the same way, we watch videos of what I assume to be future London. They’re not just videos, but memories. Memories that haven’t even happened yet. Barely any sky remains after plenty of new skyscrapers have sprouted. Floating advertisements fiercely flicker strong hues on the streets below as he plays with other children, 40ft under a flying car motorway. One of the children taps his heels together, turning his lower half purple before running up a wall to –

“Josie!” I whip around, whacking the can of Pepsi over the counter, to see Mae towering over me.