Geoffrey and Coffee Morning 2024.

The young barista brought Geoffrey his coffee in the cafe and to his seat by the window. She was pretty he mused as she walked away with that sway of his she had. Girls seemed prettier these days he thought gazing out the window at the passing people. So many people. He recalled lines by Eliot how he didn't know that death had undone so many. He stirred the coffee with the spoon then licked the spoon to taste the smoothness of the coffee and milk. His late wife disliked coffee shops, preferring tea shops and that old English kind of thing. Since her demise he was free to go to the coffee cafes as much as he liked. This was his favorite; they knew him and his likes here. Once he would have had a cigarette, but that was outlawed now, so couldn’t. He had his first cigarette in 1955; one he liberated from his late father’s pack. He sipped and watched the busy street. The town was nothing to being in London. He worked in London for years. Sometimes his work sent him abroad and his late wife thought he was in management of a business, rather than in the secret service. She never questioned why he went abroad so often. Now it was all the past. Governments come and go, but the power remained in other secret hands. He licked his lips. Age had come too soon. Or so it seemed. This was not the last years that he had dreamed.