I stretch lazily and gaze out at the world beyond the glass with a wide smile. The view is almost obscured by age-old cobwebs and dust, but even through this gauzy veil, intoxicating rays of sunlight manage to break through.
I run my tremulously fingers from my wrists to my elbows. The rope bruises have long since faded. The burns on my skin took much longer to heal, yet now there is no trace left of the Inquisition's fire-except in my memory... and in the heavy, suffocating smell of smoke that sometimes seems to rise from the hot aroma of coffee. Just like the scorching air of Pompeii, the sweet, putrid stench of the plague or any other local cataclysm...
It's time to get back to business. I am the owner of a coffee shop. And I serve only one drink-coffee with cherries. Each of my guests finds in it something... unique and deeply personal.