Short Story + Monologue

 **Background Context: Axelle has travelled back in time to the 1990s, where she meets her boss as a 26-year-old young man who doesn’t know whether to stay with the one he loves or stay with his family’s coffee shop, Sweet Blooms. This is the climax, where Karl (Axelle’s boss) and Axelle (the protagonist) are waiting for Katya (the one that Karl loves) to arrive. To Axelle’s frustration, Karl is struck with a case of “pre-wedding jitters”.**

 “Karl, listen to me. You want this, right?”

   He nodded.

   “Why?”

   “Easy. I love Katya and I want to marry her. I want to marry her. Without the pressure of my parents.” A small smile had appeared on Karl’s face at the thought of the slim, carefree criminal, but I noticed almost immediately when that smile slipped from his face into lip-biting worry.

   “What about her?”

   “Of course.”

   “So then why are you hesitating now?”

   Karl was silent. His normally neat black hair was ruffled and mussed after what’d probably been quite a while of tearing his fingers through it. His brown eyes had been cast to the ground as if Karl wished the ground contained all the answers to his problems. Both hands were stuck in his pockets, and everything about Karl seemed to give off an air of hopelessness. “Axelle…Axelle, I don’t know if you’ll understand. You’re only 15.”

   Yeah, but I know more about your future than you do at the moment. “I will. Trust me.”

   It took a few more moments for him to finally make a decision, but Karl soon let out another exhale, raising his head to look me in the eye. “Axelle, you said you know Sweet Blooms, right?”

   “You’re expected to take over the shop when your parents deem you ready. Of course.”

   Karl nodded, letting out a small breath. “But I also want to stay with Katya.”

  “I wish I’d stayed with Katya.” Some nights (this was back in the present, obviously), a few minutes before we closed up the cafe, I could hear my boss weeping, whispering words like those. 

   “Katya, please—if you could use that brain of yours and find your way back to me, I promise I’ll never leave you like that again!”

   “Katya…I miss you so much…why was I so scared to elope back then? I don’t know where you are now, I don’t know how you’re doing, I don’t even know if you’re still alive! This is all my fault…” 

   “Katya, let me tell you something that you’ve probably heard a million times already. The hardest thing on Earth is choosing what matters. Not how to become rich, not disciplining yourself, not stopping procrastinating, not climbing Mount Everest…choosing what matters. I failed the test, Katya. That’s why I’m stuck in this life without you.” 

   “Katya…I wish I was more like Gus McCrae. I know it’s silly to have a retired Texas Ranger as a hero, especially if he drinks and plays cards, but you know what he once said? ‘It’s not dying I’m talking about, it’s living.’ When have I ever lived?”  “ ‘It’s not dying I’m talking about, it’s living.’ ”

   “Gus McCrae.” A small smile slowly spread across his face, and although not as large as it had been, it was there nonetheless. “What an amazing man he is. Except for the alcohol and the playing cards. I’m going to tell you something right now Axelle—drugs aren’t good for you. Gus taught me that.”

   I nodded at him in acknowledgement, despite the fact that I had already developed a distaste for drugs and gambling. Then, before Karl could continue talking Lonesome Dove, I quickly began: “Karl of the town Angel Sky, you are someone who wishes to be a good and obedient son, but you’re also someone who’s in love. You love Katya Wilson of the same town, and it’s a good thing that she loves you too; otherwise, you’d both be in a bit of trouble. Your parents run a small coffee shop called Sweet Blooms, and because you’re their only son you’re the one expected to take over once you’re old enough.”

   “You sound very wise for a 15-year-old.” Karl attempted a joking grin, but I ignored it and continued. 

   “Please, remind me–what was that Gus McCrae quote again?”

   “ ‘It’s not dying I’m talking about, it’s living.’ ” It was so softly spoken that if I’d been a mere passerby I probably wouldn’t have heard him.

  “Exactly. Now—by the way, I don’t mean any offense to your parents or your cafe—obviously for you it’s not a choice between literal life and death, but you could think of it as freedom vs safety or the birth of your life vs the death of your life. Do you accept the key to freedom, to a life of your own?” 

   Karl bit his lip, eyes falling downwards to look at his shoes.

   “Karl?”

   “I don’t know Axelle,” he murmured, keeping his eyes down. He let out a sigh. “If I accept the key, sure it means freedom, but freedom is…”

   “Terrifying?”

   “Yeah, terrifying.” Karl swallowed, and continued. “Freedom is where they leave you in the middle of nowhere and they don’t bat another eye at you anymore after that…” He let his sentence trail off, an he took on an undecided expression.

   I nearly let out an irritated huff at his own indecisiveness. Shouldn’t it be easy to make a decision? 

   Be with the one you love! Accept the key and run out into the world with your newfound freedom!

   The sound of heels came clicking rapidly towards us, and both Karl and I turned to see Katya, a huge grin on her face. Her blonde blunt cut blew about gently in the soft breeze, and her pale eyes were shining with joy. This time, instead of her Western-style shirt and black-and-white plaid jeans, a loose pale blue dress was on her, and I watched the way it fluttered about like a butterfly. On her feet were a pair of beige kitten-heeled strappy sandals instead of her usual black combat boots. “Hey Karl, you ready?”

   “You wore a dress.” Karl’s pleasantly surprised face slowly turned to one of delight as he swiftly moved to her and picked her up, spinning her through the air for a few seconds and finally setting her on the ground again, as gently as if she really was a butterfly. 

   “Yeah.” An uncharacteristic blush spread across Katya’s cheeks, and her eyes dropped down to the ground shyly. “You like it?”
  “Like it? Katya Wilson, I love it!” He leaned in, gave her a quick yet still passionate kiss, and then after compiling it with a hug, turned to glance gratefully at me. “Thank you, Axelle. Seriously. I must admit, you are wiser than a 15-year-old.” 

   I felt my cheeks heat with the compliment as I waved a hand in goodbye. “No problem—see you soon!” I let out a laugh as I saw Karl’s expression change to one of bemusement—I could just imagine what he’d be thinking: …see you soon? Whatever could that mean?

  ~ * ~

   “Morning Ax—Aldora! I told you, don’t go running around in the cafe like that!”

   Cafe? 

   And then I heard a muttered, “You’re nearly 20 for goodness sake; where’d you get all this energy?”

   I blinked my eyes open, feeling as if I’d waken up from a deliciously amazing dream. Gradually, my new surroundings came into view—or rather, the surroundings I was in before I got pulled back into time. (Had that really been just a dream?)The ferns in a corner of the room, the seating area with its round tables, the birch plywood walls…

   I was back in Sweet Blooms. And the Sweet Blooms I knew, not the Sweet Blooms of the past.

   “Hey Axelle,” called a gruff voice. I turned, blinking in surprise as I saw my boss walk into the room. An uncharacteristic grin was plastered on his face as if he was in the middle of telling someone a joke, his brown eyes twinkling with merriment. His rugged face was still the same, but there was something more cheerful about Karl than when I’d last interacted with adult-him.

   “Why the grin?”

   “Why not the grin? I’m happily married to the love of my life, with a teenage daughter who’s full of energy like a child! Tell me Axelle, why not the grin?”

   Happily married?

   And then suddenly I remembered everything. “Oh, right.”

   “Don’t tell me you forgot,” he added, wagging a finger at me in mock disapproval. “My wife’s in here every day, helping out when she’s not chasing after Aldora. Oh, speaking of her…Aldora, meet Axelle.”

   “Hey there.” Aldora Alcock, as if on cue, skidded to a halt in front of me, the same grin as her father’s on her face.  She had blonde hair that seemed to always be tied up in a ponytail (today it was complemented by a plum-colored scrunchie) as well as her mother’s blue eyes. Her clothing choices, on the other hand, seemed to take after her father’s more—casual and somewhat loose—but luckily she seemed to have inherited a bit of her mother’s stylistic preferences. Today her outfit was compromised of a jean jacket, a floral shirt and high-waisted flared pants. “Are you Axelle? Dad’s told me all about you and how…” She paused for a few seconds, uncertainty on her slender face, before leaning in towards me. “…how you apparently saved him?”

   I chanced a glance at Karl—he hadn’t noticed our conspiring and was whistling away as he went about cleaning and rubbing at nearly everything until they shined even brighter than the stars. 

   “Saving him?” I echoed, wondering if Katya remembered me from the 90s. 

   “Yeah, I know right? Whenever Dad says something like that, she insists that she was the one to save him. Mom keeps telling Dad that it was only thanks to her that their elopement succeeded.” After another conspiratorial glance at me, Aldora added, “She also says that Dad’s gone crazy.”

   Apparently Katya’s memory of the elopement had changed. “Huh. Maybe he has.”

   Aldora threw her head back and let out a laugh that she’d clearly gotten from her mother. “You’re hilarious Ax. I wonder how Dad became friends with you. Come up to my room anytime you want to hear some more juicy stories—I’ve got loads of them!” The daughter of my boss then sped away in her sneakers with a warcry of “YOU’RE GOING TO PAY BETH!!”

   A few seconds later, Katya popped her head around the corner, looking relieved to be free of her daughter for a few seconds. “Hey Axelle? I’ve got great news for you!”

   Somewhere behind her I heard a slightly-worried “Katya, you’re not supposed to tell her now!”

   Katya turned her head around and replied “Sorry love, I couldn’t wait” with a teasing grin on her face. Then, turning back to me… “Axelle, my husband and I have decided to promote you!”