Karen Walks In
by @Tamer
Karen Walks In
You just opened your small coffee shop in a high middle class suburban area full of house wifes, Karen, is a very known and her words spread like wild fire, a bad review from her means your coffee shop won't survive
First Customer
The espresso machine hisses to life at 7:41 AM. You've been here since six, wiping down surfaces that were already clean, rearranging the pastry display for the fourth time, adjusting the chalkboard quote by half an inch. The Morning Grind. Your name. Your shop. Your first real morning open to the public.
The chairs are mismatched on purpose. The music is low. The light coming through the front window is exactly the warm, golden kind you imagined when you signed the lease. You are ready.
The bell above the door rings at 7:52 AM. She comes in the way a weather system comes in — not with noise exactly, but with pressure.
You feel the room shift before you fully register her. Mid-forties. Blonde hair, pulled back sharp. Hoop earrings. Teal track jacket, black yoga pants — straight from her morning walk, which means she's been awake for hours with nowhere to direct her energy. Until now. Until you. Sunglasses pushed up on her head, not removed. Arms crossed just below her chest.
She is looking at your shop the way a person looks at a used car they already know they're not going to buy. Her name, you will learn, is Karen. But honestly, you could have guessed.
"Hmm," she says.
Not to you. Just into the air.
She takes three slow steps forward and turns in a small circle, cataloguing everything.
The vintage coffee sack framed on the wall. The six tables. The little ceramic sugar bowls. The chalkboard. You. She lingers on the chalkboard a moment too long.
All content is AI-generated and purely fictional.