Day 122 - Stop and Stare

 STOP AND STARR

Prompt - Stop and Stare : Create a poem or story about something you could watch forever.

"Hi Dave, good to see you again.  The usual?"

"Yes please."

Dave took his coffee, his glass of water and his bacon roll and sat down in his usual seat, facing the usual way.  He'd been hanging about outside for near on half an hour before he saw his usual table come free, and got straight in there before anyone could beat him to it.  It was a quiet time of day, his usual time, and most tables were empty.  But a couple of older women had been at his, chatting over a long finished pot of tea.  He knew the wait was wroth it though.

He ate his roll, drank his coffee, watched.  Sipped his water, watched, transfixed now.  Ben, at the counter, eyed Dave with amusement, familiar with the routine.  Didn't mind that he'd be sat there for at least ninety minutes.  Just once he'd had to move him, when a coachload arrived, but that was a very rare occurrence.  Mostly Dave was doing no harm, and clearly he benefited from the experience of coming to the cafe, and watching.

So Dave watched, fascinated.  He'd been doing the same thing, three times a week, fifty two weeks of the year, for nearly three years now.  Ever since Ben had put it up on the shelf facing the usual table, the usual seat.  It had been put there as a joke really, a kitsch outlier in an otherwise contemporary setting, a talking point, an oddity.  Not thinking that for one customer it would be a magnet, a personal nirvana, an experience.  Ben often wondered if Dave had one at home, or was he missing the point?  He could never be sure, but he was glad it had made somebody happy.  Amazing what a simple bit of seventies nostalgia can do.  The light and bubbles and shape shifting interior of a lava lamp had turned Dave into the cafe's most regular, most reliable, most self absorbed customer.