Jackie knew the smell of coffee, appreciated it, loved it and eventually grown sick of it but he hadn’t smelt badly burnt coffee in quite some time. Not since he had attended the company training sessions for new barista employees and corrected the procedures himself by getting hands on and showing them exactly how to brew coffee the right way.

Yeah. Someone made an error, has a lack of training or is trying to roast coffee beans for the first time. Takes me right back to when my Dad used to make me drink the bitter stuff each time I failed. So, so glad I never did that to my own adopted kids. Tough luck Dad.

He had managed to build one of the most successful coffee companies with a global reach through choosing the right employees and filtering those who decided to make a lack of effort or lacked engagement.

Making mistakes was common, the inability to learn from those mistakes and either listen or adapt was an issue for him. Even with his own adopted children, he had let them learn directly from experience and choose their own paths and they had all chosen to follow in his own footsteps with in their own style.

Not a single one of them nor his grandchildren had been actively supported or endorsed by him to succeed. They either chose to work in the family business or they could focus on their own lives. He’d given them sufficient financial support to make their lives comfortable with housing and minor investments but not enough to make them fully rich and lazy.

That burnt coffee is seriously bringing back old memories. Getting old isn’t any fun. Who knew?

He had yanked open the door to his personal office to find the entire space had transformed and the smell of ruined coffee beans had just added to his confusion. Either he was getting older than he thought, had spent far longer getting changed than he realised or someone had carefully planned the entire transformation of his personal office into a makeshift Coffee House.

What? Who exactly decided that this was a good use of company resources?

In front of him there was an open space where his office floor carpet had been, the office view window had been replaced with a mock white brick wall and a counter with all the necessary coffee shop equipment behind it.

The blackboard which should have displayed a list of the drinks available was blank aside from a children’s stickman drawing of someone holding a cup with steam lines rising above. A glass case was entirely emptyn aside from several old looking plates and cups which had been placed inside without care. From a glance, Jackie could immediately tell that they hadn’t been sterilised and had no business being on display to customers. The style of them was archaic and he was certain that they were made of clay or another base material.

There was no way that he would ever serve those unless they had been cleaned, checked for minor damage and thrown in the rubbish bin and new fresh plates and cups used. Jackie knew that appearance mattered when you wanted to drink your coffee in a nice environment.

Otherwise, people would have wised up, picked up their own equipment, ground their own beans and stayed at home. All they needed were good quality beans, roasted to a high standard and picked from good stock. People wanted an experience, a comfortable place which made them relax and share a drink with friends or some time by themselves.

The rest of the room was nothing special, the flooring had been changed to bare concrete but stripping away the carpet made sense and the other walls were different colours. The ceiling was the biggest surprise to Jackie and perhaps the only piece of interior design which he appreciated.

‘Hello? Is this it? I am impressed with the style, certainly unique but you can turn all the companies Coffee House’s into this when I fully retire and not a second before. I’m not going to sign off on this. Hello?’ said Jackie.

The lack of response didn’t bother him. Likely, he was being directly recorded and broadcast across the corporate headquarters and streaming for everyone, shareholders, his adopted children and grandkids all smiling or shocked at his strange decision of fashion.

‘Oh no, someone changed the room into something else! Surely a massive surprise for me. Not the best design certainly unless you’re been digging deep through my ancient early interior decoration designs and then playing mix and match. Good try though.’ said Jackie as the Coffee Shop remained entirely empty.

There could have been members of his close staff of family in hiding so Jackie would play along just a little. Being a tough, successful CEO didn’t mean that he lacked a sense of humour or appreciation. As long as they didn’t want to kill him with a shock by declaring this Coffee Shop as the new face of the company fully endorsed by him then he wouldn’t mind. The condition and state of the company weasn’t going to be his concern and truthfully, he’d worked hard enough to know when to let go and new ideas come in.

Not the best styles though. A total mismatch in my eyes. Someone has clearly not been taking a page from my original design notes.

In order to build his own initial chain of Coffee Houses he had tracked down designers, highly discerning customers and old-school experts to widen his team. Then he’d recreated a the same Coffee House in a converted garage inside his own house and acted as the main barista, serving, cleaning and supplying drinks. All for profit though. Even on a bad day the quality of fresh cups of coffee he could produce, either chilled, hot or lukewarm were all better than the mass produced stuff available.

His own adopted kids had chipped in as well outside of their school hours even when they’d begun secondary school although he understood that other priorities took their time away from him. As a single Dad it had taken him a ton of energy and the help of more than a few friends but the rebuilding and building of the perfect Coffee House in his eyes had been totally worth it.

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In the end he’d done fantastically well and built new branches, processing plants and even his own coffee plantations. All of his success was owed to those he worked with, he just operated as the leader and the main driving force. But this Coffee Shop was a complete mess by his usual standards. Even one of his kids who had chosen to work in a different field within the main company had the skills to design and produce a layout better than this.

‘Uh...wow. The fashion is so...out there! I’m truly shocked and stuff. Oh, I’m just an old jacked man wearing a shirt with a furry collar, jeans and army boots who has apparently lost his mind and walked into a Coffee House instead of my personal office. Wow, I’ve been transported into a another world where this is the future of my soon to be former coffee houses! What shall I do?’ said Jackie as he raised both hands to his cheeks in mock surprise.

The gold necklace and rings on all his fingers clashed together as he took in the rest of his transformed personal office space. There was obviously no sign of Daphne, his personal assistant, who had either been in on the joke or had left to begin her new life of wealth with her husband. Not that he blamed her.

Whomever had pulled this joke was going to receive a decent tongue lashing for wasting resources and his personal congratulations for trying to be creative beyond measure. Then he’d walk off and leave them to it, none of this was going to be his business for much longer.

‘Oh, you’ve even designed spaces for guests to be seated at. I’m not sure some of those would even fit me but a good try.’ said Jackie.

There was a grouping of chairs and tables for customers but all of them were entirely mismatched, both in colour scheme and style all of it clashed. Unless the people who were going to attend the Coffee House were either shorter or much taller than an average human he didn’t see why anyone would want to use them aside from a set for some type of fantasy series. The mixture of wood and stone for the materials used to make them as an inspired choice but they looked to belong more in a museum of archaic design or a more rustic setting than what he was used to.

Wait. What was the name of the kid who interrupted me when I was getting changed? The one with the weird voice, used a voice changed or whatever fancy technology the young people use these days.

He recalled that there had been the voice of a young kid saying that they had coffee burning and not asked him to come in. He didn’t remember it but it had been a while since he had seen any of his grandchildren and they had all grown up faster than he had imagined.

‘Hello. Linas? Sorry, but I think I’ve already worn enough bling bling as it is. I walk out of my corporate headquarters like this and the media and all those people with their handheld recording devices are going to have a field day. I appreciate your fashion tips about my fur collar and the military style ankle boots. Old jacked CEO decides to become a fashion guru on his day of retirement. Hello? I’m waiting for the surprise.’

‘Burnt coffee. You’ve chosen to roast the beans for too long or have too high a temperature. Trust me, I’ve chosen to drink the stuff as an example. Tastes pretty bad but I learnt from the experience. Still, the fact that you know that you burnt it is a good sign. Huh, everyone went all out in transforming my personal office into….a Coffee House with a unique style? Is this place meant to match my unique fashion choices? Is this being recorded as well?’

The sight of the Coffee House in his immediate field of vision made Jackie consider the amount of money spent to create such a rich visual experience. Yes, it was a mess and a mixture of ancient style materials mixed with new ones but at least they had one part of it done right. When he looked upwards the ceiling of his former personal office appeared to stretch into the distance as he saw distant stars overhead. Some of them even twinkled as he watched.

‘The infinite ceiling is a good trick but you need your money back from the designer. Or if you designed it yourself then you need to do a far better job of studying. All these colours clash. Badly. Extremely badly. The furniture is entirely mismatched and those tables are obviously too high for the rattan chairs. Is this the point where my kids jump out and yell surprise? I’m an old man. Just give me my coffee to go and…where is anyone? Come on, I’ve been standing here enjoying the view and expecting a hidden doorway to open or a trapdoor and someone yells surprise. This is meant to be my retirement day, not a make fun of the old man day.’ Said Jackie.

He looked down at his own body and the unique fashion choices he had made. Nope, he wasn’t dreaming this. Someone was messing with on purpose. They had tricked him with a little light trick inside his personal wardrobe and then delayed him for as long as they could while setting up the sheer mockery and impression of a Coffee House with bright colours that were popular when he had been starting out as a young man in business.

Given his still present status as the CEO of Imperial Coffee, at least until his formal retirement was accepted by the board of directions, what he didn’t like he didn’t have to accept. Jackie had been working for long enough to know ther trick of authority was to make your words clear and stand out and always give the impression that you knew what you wanted.

‘Right. Fun time is over. I tolerated the trick with my walk in wardrobe. But all this fancy technology or rapid set design would only impress me if you stuck with attention to detail. This place is a total mess. I repeat. Give me my badly made coffee and I’m out of here. Linas. I don’t know who set you up for this little trick but please give it up.’ Said Jackie.

As an afterthought he reconsidered his words. Someone had gone through a great deal to make this happen and….coffee. He smelled burnt coffee once more. The entire time he had been staring at the Coffee House the thought had largely slipped his mind as though he had forgotten it. There were no visible signs of heat, steam or any of the machinery behind the counter having been used recently.

Rubbing his chin with a gold ringed hand Jackie walked over to the counter and leant over, seeing that it was also entirely empty and vacant despite the smell of burnt coffee growing stronger. A presence in the room flashed into existence as he turned around and saw a white light and a figure appear holding a glowing ball of fire in which the ashes of roasted coffee beans in their hands could be seen.

The voice of the figure was odd, as though amplified but filtered to make it clearer. Not like a machine but purer in a way. Jackie saw the young face of someone in their late teens at most wearing an even more garish imitation of his own clothing. A bright blue coat with a furry mane and matching boots completed the outfit. Delicate features and extremely white teeth with mid-length messy brown hair showed a face which was verging on tears casually holding the glowing ball of fire with no obvious signs of discomfort.

Jackie didn’t have the time to sigh as a beam of energy flew from the glowing ball of fire and hit his own clothing, not igniting it as he had expected as he eyes gently closed and he found himself falling asleep despite standing up.

Guess I was dreaming after all. Wake me up when the real surprise retirement party begins kids.Wait, I never had a grandchild called Lina-