That morning, Alexander opened the coffee shop earlier than usual. It was only 7 a.m. when the young man about thirty changed the door sign from „Closed” to „Open.” Then, with a wet cloth in his hand, he stood in front of the window for a long time, looking through it at the rain that had been drumming on the wet asphalt for a very long time already. A rain that brought melancholy in the man’s soul each time he looked at it, making him smile after this, even on a rainy day like that.
The sad weather didn’t make Alex sad too, not that day or any other day. On the contrary, he simply loved that weather because it meant that romance had its meaning on such dark days. At the same time, he had a lot of clients on rainy days. A big part of them was youngsters, who, running away from the outside rain, were hiding in his small coffee shop. They did that looking to warm their body in front of the big fireplace where there was always a big fire, having a cup of coffee or hot tea in front of them and an open book on their lap because Alexander had brought enough books in that shop. There were huge bookshelves actually, because Alex was aware that the young people of Ireland loved to read, titles that he took care to renew often just to make sure he’d keep the readers there, crossing the threshold of his coffee shop almost every day.
Actually, even if Alex, as almost all the clients were calling him, hadn’t brought new titles into that coffee shop, the clients would have crossed its threshold anyway. The reason? Love that was felt everywhere, floating in the air in a place where the heart felt so well. How not to feel all this when a lot of couples of trysts found their place there, sitting side-by-side, sinking into the pleasant universe of romance that was also hidden through the pages of the books, just to make sure they’d feel its aroma each time they turned a page. Thus, they could walk together on those wet paths described by those lines written in the book. On those beautiful alleys covered by the yellow leaves of autumn that covered the earth with the thick cloth of love, a coat that had holly colors, loved by the in-love soul of a man or woman, one who knew that his or her soul was the temple of romance, in fact.
Alex thought that his soul was also the temple of romance. He always considered himself in love with nature and beauty. He thought he was a lover of the world, of new and old books, of the scent that was so pleasantly felt from them. And, not least, of the smell of fresh coffee, which he prepared each morning just to make sure he’d fill the street with its pleasant aroma, luring into the coffee shop romantic people like him, in-love people and dreamers just as he was.
That morning, after preparing the coffee and making sure the place was ready to receive the clients on that rainy day, the man poured himself a cup of coffee and approached the big window that was watching the east of the city. From there, he saw the small square that was almost empty at that early morning hour. Yet, this didn’t bother or concern the young man because, as he loved the beauty, Alex also loved loneliness.
It would have been strange for him not to love loneliness. It happened because everybody in the world knew that romantic people loved to spend their time alone, watching the world with the eyes of love that they always kept in their souls. With that love that they are always ready to share at least with nature if not with romantic people like them. A loneliness that they start to hate when „They fall in love with a beautiful woman with blue eyes and blonde hair,” as Alex loved to joke often because he had seen enough romantic people who had forgotten about their biggest passion - loneliness and longing - when they had fallen in love with someone. Because of this, Alexander Doyle had sworn not to forget ever this because, for him, being romantic meant being alone, always alone, sharing the love from his soul only with the world, the one he didn’t have direct contact with, but which he loved for the simple fact that it existed.
Such life conviction Alex had had for almost fifteen years since he declared himself a hopeless romantic. Then, after he had seen that the girl he liked, a blonde girl with big blue eyes had preferred another boy, a very known boy in their high school, and not him, an egghead, the young man told himself that love is holly only when you keep it in your heart and not when you share it with others. Swearing himself this, Alexander told himself that he wouldn’t ever fall in love again or betray romance. Yet, the heart… ah, the heart betrays sometimes, especially those romantic people…
Also because of his heart, Alex suddenly felt strange while watching the rain. Why he felt like this, the man didn’t know. Even so, with all the strangeness in his soul, something that was familiar to him already because it was a feature of the lonely romantic, the man smiled. Alex kindly smiled, moved from inside by the huge love he kept in his heart. That love that turned him melancholic while listening to the dance of the raindrops on the wet asphalt, right in front of him, outlining the perfect shape of love, life, the outside world, and… Her steps, those that seemed not to touch the wet asphalt of the small town Westport where Alexander Doyle had opened his coffee shop four years ago.
At first, Alex only saw her black stiletto shoes that were pleasantly knocking with their high heels on the autumn asphalt. He saw them barely touching the wet asphalt, leaving a small shadow behind them, one bathed by the drops of the soul on which she was so confidently stepping on that gloomy morning of autumn. Shoes that Alex found extremely beautiful, although they were at all perfect for that cold morning, pretty cold for that time of year, one morning that was tightly held into the arms of the cold weather, which could be felt only in the heart of Ireland, in the soul of the town Westport so beloved by Alex’s heart.
Who was the owner of those black shoes, Alex didn’t know. He hadn’t ever seen them before passing by there. The man was sure of this because if he had seen them before, he would have remembered them. Yes, Alex would have remembered those shoes for sure because it wasn’t something specific to the local women… to wear high heels, especially black or stiletto ones. And, because he hadn’t ever seen them before, the man seemed completely charmed by them and by that confident walk, of a cat that was heading toward them as if it had been written by fate this way - for the man to fall in love forever with the music of two shoes that were rhythmically stepping onto the asphalt of autumn.
Understanding this, Alex smiled. He did that because he realized that once again the romantic being that lived inside him awoke, a romantic being that made himself present only on rainy days, those days when he could afford to dream while watching the outside world, and… those shoes that continued their journey straight toward his soul. Yes, it was something decided already - that those shoes charmed him as another shoe charmed the prince in the story. The prince who looked for Cinderella and didn’t give up until he didn’t find the princess of his heart, a princess that Alex compared with that lady who confidently stepped onto the autumn soul and over its tears, a woman that had the confidence of a queen, one that wore for sure stiletto shoes.
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
Besides those shoes, the woman who stole the glance of the man in front of the big window of the coffee shop wore black large trousers, with a large waist, and a white shirt that perfectly contrasted with the black of that coat that she wore on her shoulders. Her hands were white, with long fingers, which Alex noticed when he stopped analyzing her clothes and looked at the light brown of the umbrella’s handle from her hand. A huge umbrella, by the way, the color of the ripe cherries that made her black eyes seem so deep, just as her hair, the color of the ripe chestnuts, which was styled in loose curls, was falling on her back and over her chest, making her seem so beautiful. „Like Helen of Troy,” Alex thought and smiled, completely charmed by her beauty, something difficult to find in those places because it was the opposite of the local women - most of them being blonde and with blue eyes.
Watching all this, with the eyes of the romantic that lived inside him, Alex finally understood what elegance was in this world. He didn’t understand what elegance generally was, but what it was the elegance of a stylish woman, one who knew what she wanted from life, who was confident in herself, and this was seen in the perfect rhythm of her steps. Alexander also saw that elegance in the woman’s glance, who looked only in front and not on sides, as though nothing in this world would have also existed except her. She also seemed to be confident that the world was the kingdom of her soul, one inside of which she entered by pure chance, like that minor character that is often noticed in books… „The Watcher,” the one whom the writer trusts the most to notice from the shadow what the eyes of the readers or humans won’t be ever able to notice - love.
Yes, it was undoubtedly love at first sight. Alex also felt it, with all his heart, just as he was sure that Autumn had also fallen in love with the same woman. The rain had also fallen in love with the woman’s perfume because it kept rounding her; the wind fell in love with her - that wind that playfully kept running its fingers through her brown hair; and the entire world had also fallen in love with that Queen of the Unknown, who passed by there by chance just to cheer up one’s soul and make it wince, chasing the daily routine away, one that overwhelmed him and sunken him into darkness and numbness for so long.
***
The doorbell, which suddenly rang, telling him that a visitor had entered his coffee shop, awoke Alexander from that sweet dream. Looking at the door, the man was amazed to see that Helen of Troy in his shop, a Helen who didn’t smile when he fixed his glance on her, stunned to see her there when he was sure that only seconds ago she was still in the street, so pleasantly stepping onto the asphalt of autumn, giving a certain color to the world because of her beauty. She instead, a perfect Queen of Ice as many would have described her, just put her umbrella into the small support by the door, shook the drops of autumn from the brown of her hair, and, only after this, did she look at the owner of the coffee shop, asking him in a confident voice, „Is it open?”
„Yes,” the man stuttered after a few moments of pleasant confusion while staring at her. Then, realizing that he probably looked pathetic just keeping his eyes on her and doing nothing, Alexander cleared his voice and went behind the counter. „A coffee?” He asked.
„Yes, please!” The stranger replied, approaching the counter and giving him her credit card. Then, after Alexander gave her the bill, the woman smiled, like a stranger to another stranger whom she spotted watching her, turning her back to him eventually and approaching one of the bookshelves.
Already in front of the bookshelf, the woman flicked her eyes across the titles of the books as though she was looking for something in particular. Alex understood this when he glanced at her, from time to time, while preparing the coffee the stranger asked for. And, still watching her, he saw her at one point taking a book in her hand, which she flipped through a little to put it back seconds after this, a hint that it didn’t impress her too much to waste her time with it. After that, other three books had the same fate as the first one. Only the fifth book made the stranger attentive, who approached the big armchair that was in front of the fireplace. While walking toward the fireplace, she seemed captivated by the subject of the book, which she continued to read after she sat on that armchair eventually.
After she had sat down on the armchair, Alex saw the young woman about thirty rhythmically turning the pages of the book, with her eyes fixed on the lines she read, and seeming that nothing and nobody was able to catch her eyes or make her leave the book aside. She seemed completely immersed in the story of the book she was reading because she didn’t look at Alex when he approached her to put the coffee on the coffee table that was to her right. Yet, she wasn’t too immersed in that story because, soon after this, without interrupting her reading, she took the cup in her hand and sipped from the sweet-bitter coffee that filled the shop with its pleasant aroma, as pleasant as Alex felt at that moment.
The stranger spent the entire day in Alex’s coffee shop. She spent the day reading the book she took from the bookshelf, at all bothered or interested in the other clients that entered the place, doing the same thing as she did: ordering a cup of coffee, taking a book from one of the shelves, and reading while sitting on one of the big armchairs in front of the fireplace or on those bean bags that could be seen here and there in the shop. The young woman even seemed completely out of reality at one point, sunken into the world of the novel she was reading, a book she left aside only when she got to the last page. Only then, when she closed the book, did she smile, somehow playfully, a hint that she had liked that story. Then, somehow pleasantly motivated by what she read, she stood up, put the book on the shelf again, and left the shop in the same way as she entered it: mysteriously and somehow on the run.
Her „run” was only an illusion though because, while she moved away from the coffee shop, Alex approached the window and watched her leaving. He saw her slowly but surely walking on the autumn asphalt, without the big umbrella above her head once the rain was already over, allowing the man to admire her silhouette that was perfectly outlined by the darkness of the evening. It was already five p.m. when she left that place, a perfect time to let him admire not only her confident walking but also her straight back and her hair, perfectly styled in curls that covered her back almost entirely. All this made her look mysterious and so pleasant, like a goddess whom many would have wanted by their side, but whom only so few people had the privilege to have with them or admire her from close and feel the pleasant aroma of the ripe chestnuts hidden in her hair.
Alex had the chance to feel the aroma of her hair that day though. He had it for a short time only when he put the cup of coffee on the table next to her. A perfume that he would have liked to deeply breathe in, for a long time, something he couldn’t dare do because he dared to approach her only once that day. Why exactly? Because he felt so clumsy next to her. „Like a kid that fell in love for the first time,” Alex caught a thought crossing his mind. A thought he whispered eventually when he was in front of the bookshelf already, looking at the book the woman left there after she had finished reading it.