It’s a lazy Saturday morning and the weather is gloomy, at best, with clouds all over and a continuous drizzle, but I decide to take a stroll to see a store I found the night before. Not having had my breakfast yet, I plan to find something close to my destination, so I take my phone out and see how to get there before leaving the Wi-Fi, as my mobile network would not be available.

I get to the store’s neighborhood and my first impression is that it is an immigrant one, so I take the chance to try and taste something different. I find a small cafe with very few people inside and enter it. A man, whom I’ll call Happy Chef, warmly greets me: “Good morning sir, table for one? How are you doing this morning?”. We do what etiquette tells us to do and proceed to comment about the weather, then he leaves me with the menu, goes behind the counter and start talking to another man, the Easygoing, in a language I’m not familiar with, so I get distracted

From what seems to be the toilet, comes a third man, the Friendly Grandpa, walking slowly and taking small pauses for balance. He greets the first two waiters and calls a third one, the Something’s Off woman, to hand her a chocolate. She seems very uncomfortable with it, but says “you know, this is actually my favorite chocolate, thank you!”. He continues with a grim, sits on a table to my right and slowly starts counting his pennies.

Easygoing comes back with a breakfast plate and sits by my left, Friendly Grandpa then says: “ain’t this a beautiful looking breakfast?” to which he hears back “it is, want a share?” and replies “no, son, thank you, I had breakfast earlier”. Grandpa then hands his pennies to Something’s Off and she thanks him and goes behind the counter, looking confused.

While all of this unfolds, I get my breakfast plate, a lot more elaborate and well presented than I would have expected:

I am alone and with no mobile network, so I continue to mind these people’s businesses, as I have my meal. Happy Chef comes back with coffee for Friendly Grandpa and also for a third customer which had been lurking in the corner with a pile of notebooks, carefully taking notes. Happy Chef greets him and asks him what he is doing, to which he replies about being an English teacher at a local school currently correcting essays, the waiter replies back “are you really? I used to study there not long ago” and they proceed to have a short conversation.

Friendly Grandpa finishes his coffee, stands up and faces the counter “bye Happy Chef, see you tomorrow… bye Smiler, I hope you are feeling better”, she shakes her head sideways, but says she’ll be ok, so he leaves.

I see Easygoing is teaching Something’s Off how to make espressos and other stuff, and suddenly understand her uncomfortable look: she’s new to the job!

I finish my plate and wonder about all these people whom I have observed in the past hour: would I have ever noticed this micro universe had I had my cellphone? I’m not in a small coffee in the isolated countryside, but rather in a London neighborhood, it awes me that these people achieved this level of intimacy. I can’t help but to leave with a grim on my face, seeing how Friendly Grandpa made his effort to lighten everyone’s humor, even mine, but this he’ll never know!