In Fifteen Years

    I'm on the beach looking back at my coffee shop. It's running itself alongside the glow of the bonfire and the shadows of people dancing. My kids are running zig zags through people's legs. On the roof, people are laughing and talking. Their hands are slap tapping the railing to the beat of the music. Corey arrives late. She had to be at the hostile until the laundry was done. She's smiling though, with her camera around her neck. Click. She's smiling cause she knows that Wednesday nights is when we start the bonfire at sundown. I tell the story about the time she got caught surfing in an illegal spot on the beach and how she actually asked the cop to put the handcuffs on her. She one-ups me by recalling the time I tried to jump off the roof of the coffee shop onto a sea of mattresses and ended up breaking my leg. She takes a picture of my facial expression. The Polaroid zips out, It's going on "the wall" Her photography is everywhere. Our coffee shop is like a museum along with the copious amounts of artistic contributions from our patrons, Poems typed on typewriters. Faded stickers. Graffiti murals of the waves crashing our private beach. Our esthetic would agree with Magritte or Dali. Corey and I are grounded. The hammocks are always filled with lovers. The cups are filled with coffee and tea and the simple beverages. Lemonade. Our lemonade stand has become an unmovable staple of the landscape. It's modest but magnetic. The memories had there, draw you back. We create the moments that make people nostalgic. The times we were happy get stamped into the minds of our customers and they grow old with us. And every night when the sun goes down, and the bonfire burns out, and the kids are asleep, and the ocean is the only thing breaking the silence, around a coffee table…..click.