Although autumn had long since come to Paris, today was a day where Summer had decided to fight back for its rights, and bring back a welcomed improved weather. It had been raining all week, with temperatures dropping well under 10 degrees, making me wear a winter jacket to work; that same jacket that I had bought in Geneva almost two months ago.

But, today was not a cold and miserable day, like the days before it had been. Although my mood was still pretty down, it was sunny and relatively warm outside, meaning that clients mostly took their drinks ‘to go’ today. Hence, Etienne and I were both working on the floor today, with him taking orders in his typical friendly voice, and me running around behind him, pretending to be a spider, as I did too many things at once all while praying not to spill anything.

“I’ll go downstairs to get more pastries.” Etienne spoke, once the midday rush of clientele had finally died down. “Do we need any of the cakes?”

“We can use some more chocolate and nut doughnuts.” I replied, trying my hardest to focus on the question.

Zoning out to get things done, or hyper-focusing on a task (I never knew which one of the two it was) had always been one f my greatest strengths. I could easily do the kind of fast manual stuff where I worked more from muscle memory than anything else very efficiently, but once someone brought me out of that zone, just as Etienne had done with his question, I always needed a few moments to re-focus. So, once I finally realised what was going on, Etienne was already halfway down the stairs.

“Hey! I want a break too!” I called after him.

“Nut doughnuts is all I heard.” He replied before running down into the kitchen.

With a sigh, I returned to the counter. In those thirty or so seconds it had taken me to walk the short distance to the stairs and back, a line had already formed.

“Good afternoon, what can I get you?” I asked the person before me.

“Hmm let me think…” The customer replied.

“Take your time…” I spoke with a tone as tired as theirs had been thoughtful.

Ten customers later, Etienne still hadn’t come back up from the kitchen. He had either fallen asleep, or more likely, he was too busy preparing food for the afternoon rush, and stacking an unholy amount of trays one atop the other so he could carry it all in one go. Ever since that Starbucks by the funicular had closed, the coffee shop had begun seeing more and more traffic. Or perhaps Manon had done some advertising. I did not know, nor did I really care about the reason for the increased intensity of my job.

As I served a triple expresso to a customer dressed as a Disney princess, I sigh in relief as the queue had finally vanished. But, before I had had the time to catch a proper break, I heard a commotion outside.

How monsters kept appearing on this side of town still remained a mystery to me. Four large slimes rolled down the Montmartre hill, passing the coffee shop. The one customer who was sitting outside barely bothered to lift their legs as the creatures continued on their journey to wreak havoc elsewhere.

But then, something even stranger happened. A panther rushed down the street, following the slimes.

A few seconds later, three blobs of goo, one of which was heavily trailing behind the rest, hopped back uphill. But they hadn’t had time to take refuge, or hide from their pursuer. The panther caught up to them, catching one in its mouth before ripping it to pieces, then doing the same to the two remaining ones.

I watched the scene with a strange distant fascination; maybe I was too overworked to care, or maybe my fear of monsters had finally started to subside.

Just when I thought it was all over, things got even stranger. The panther stood on its rear legs, before morphing into a human. I blinked, surprised, before remembering that people could indeed do that. It seemed I was more overworked than I had thought.

They wore a loose seater under a corset, and hunter-like trousers, and their braided hair was decorated with pins that imitated leaves and berries (although perhaps that could have been actual leaves and berries for all I knew). Then, as if nothing had happened, they pushed the door of ‘Chez Manon’.

“Hi, what can I get for you?” I asked, returning to my business persona.

“Oh, hi. I’d like a mocha, if you do those? Large.” They asked. “It’s quite a coincidence that those creatures have led me here, metaphorically speaking that is, since I was just looking for a new coffee place after the Starbuck shut down.”

“I can definitely get you a mocha. Anything else?” I asked. Then I suddenly realised something. “Do you work for the military by any chance?”

“Ahh,” they rubbed the back of their head, as their cheeks turned pink. “What gave it away?”

“That you just disposed of four monsters, I believe.” I replied with a somewhat amused smile. “And that you’ve admitted to it.”

They didn’t reply, neither to my comment nor my previous question.

“If you have any official proof of adherence, I can give you a 30% discount.” I spoke. “And, between us, even if you don’t, I take your word for it.” I added, because at the end of the day, either they were really in the military, or they were some altruistic stranger, which today was good enough to qualify for a discount in my book.

“Oh, I couldn’t possibly bother you.” They politely refused.

“How about a slice of free cake then?” Etienne, who seemed to have appeared from thin air right behind me asked.

I spun around to give him a ‘what the heck’ look, but didn’t say anything in front of the client.

“We need to get rid of this morning’s stock.” He whispered to my ear.

“I’ll let you think about it then, while I make your drink. Id that to stay in or to take away?”

“Take away, please.” The customer replied, with a slightly embarrassed expression.

“We have some strawberry tarts, doughnuts fresh out of the oven, lemon cheesecake,” Etienne began his sales pitch.

The customer chose a plain sugar cookie. Just as Etienne was checking them out, I finished preparing the coffee.

“here you go.” I handed them the cup.

“Thank you.” The replied with a smile before heading out.

“Thanks and come again.” Etienne said, before turning to me and asking. “Who was that? Another partner of yours?”

It took me a moment to figure out that he was referring to that incident with Jean-Yves all those weeks ago.

“You know me, always dating around, people just throw themselves at me.” I joked. “They were a form the military. You missed a monster sighting, like five minutes ago.”

“Oh really?” Etienne jokingly replied.

“Yeah, since you were so busy sleeping downstairs.”

“I wasn’t sleeping.” He argued.

“Or really?” I asked, imitating his tone. “Then how do you explain your shirt collar being all crumpled up?”

His collar was just fine, but I reached out to pretend to straighten it out nonetheless.

“I think you’re just making things up-” he began, but was interrupted by the front door opening, and a group of students walking in.

“Oh no.” I said in a dramatic voice. “I think you left the oven on downstairs. I better go check.”

“No, Luara-”

He tried to stop me, but I quickly slipped passed him.

“Have fun.” I winked, before heading to the kitchen for a well-deserved break.