“I need you to come over now!” Cried Anna the moment Cherí picked up the phone.

“What is it?” Cherí replied in a huff. She was in the middle of cooking dinner and couldn’t fathom anything that might pull her away from it, outside of her coffee shop on fire. Damn! The spaghetti was boiling over. She tucked the phone between shoulder and ear to move the pot off the burner. As she turned it off, smoke began to pour out of the oven. Oh no, the garlic bread!

“I think someone's in the men’s room.”

“Well, ask them to get out. Tell him you’re closing.” Cherí replied in a sharp voice. She bent over to pull open the oven door, and the phone slipped off her shoulder and bounded across the kitchen floor like a living entity. The cat thought so too, and batted it. The phone shot under the table.

Damn, damn, damn! She pulled the burnt offering out of the oven, then followed the cat under the table for the receiver. The cat pounced on the phone, as she reached for it, and Cherí jerked her head in surprise, when his claws dragged across the back of her hand.

CRACK, her head banged against the underside of the table.

“Bad boy Samuel!” She chastised the unrepentant puss, who eyed the phone with a gleam in his eyes.

Once again, in possession of the instrument, she slid out from under the table and put it to her ear in time to hear...

“I knocked and knocked, you know, I thought someone had pulled the door shut behind them and left it empty.”

“Listen,” Cherí said, “try pounding on it, or open it to see, I don’t want to come down right now, this is a bad time.”

“Okay,” a reluctant Anna pouted.

“Call me back ... if you absolutely must.”

#

Anna pummelled on the door and yelled “IS ANYBODY IN THERE?

Not a sound.

She hurried back to the till, pulled open the drawer, on the left, and relieved it of the key to the men’s room. She hiked back, over her freshly mopped floor. Damn it! It was covered in muddy footprints. She inspected one shoe, hopping as she pulled it up. Hell! She cringed, it was covered in... mud... she hoped it was mud, with all the patrons that came with their dogs... She would have to mop the blasted floor again.

Still tracking... mud, she came to the men’s room door. She slipped the key into the lock, and with a sudden feeling of trepidation, opened it a teensy-tiny crack, and peeped in.

There was an old man on the toilet.

#

She banged the door shut. His pants were around his feet, and his chin hung on his chest. Oh... my... God! She’d just seen a naked man. An old, naked man.

She shuddered.

What was she to do? She couldn’t go in and shake him, that would be indecent... not to mention embarrassing. She pounded on the door again, trembling. It had looked from her quick glance, that he was asleep. Who would fall asleep on the toilet? Maybe it was all an overactive imagination. She opened the door again, then slammed it shut.

Jesus, Jesus, Jesus! He still sat there, it wasn’t some fancy. Anna turned crimson, and ran for the phone, sliding past the counter, on the wet floor.

“Ch...Ch...Cherí, there’s a ... a ...mmman... a...a...ass.... asleep. You gotta come!”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“S...ss...some ol’ guy.”

“Anna, you have to be clear. What is going on?”

“He won’t get up, I can’t make him, you gotta come... PLEASE.”

Cherí decided to ask John, her husband, to go with her, given the circumstances.

#

To keep busy while she waited for Cherí, Anna huddled in the kitchen, removed her sneakers, and scrubbed the soles in the sink. She fumbled, and dropped them into the oversized basin three times. Her hands twitched whenever she thought about the old man. She looked up at the wall as if she could see into the washroom. Why didn’t he wake up, why couldn’t this have happened on Cherí’s shift?

You have to do something, she told herself. Keep busy, think about something else. The floor, of course! She needed to clean it. She refilled the large bucket and added some cleaner, slopping a large pool of water onto the floor. Nothing was going right! The mop slipped from her nervous grip and her shoes squelched, with each step. She was a wreck, when she heard Cherí call her name, she rushed to the back door.

#

“I’m so glad you’re here,” Anna said as she gathered great gulps of air, her hands on her knees. “Oh, John, I’m glad you’re here too. I’m at my wits end, I don’t know what else to do!”

Anna sunk into a chair and let her chin loll in cupped hands.

John said, “Stay with her, I’ll go and see.”

Cherí nodded, and patted the inconsolable, young woman’s back.
Anna stared with vacant eyes, through the polished, glass-topped table, her knowledge an unbearable burden.

#

John gave the unlocked door to the men’s bathroom a gentle shove. It opened without a sound. An old man sat on the toilet as advertised, with his pants around his ankles, his hoary chin on his chest, and his hands on his lap. His bald pate shone like the moon.

Gathering courage, and overcoming embarrassment, John stepped inside, and tapped the old gentleman on the shoulder.

There was a sound like a great belch, and the man’s hand flew off his lap, and slapped John on the knee. He jumped back with a yell loud enough to wake the dead.

Almost.

John slipped, and landed on his back.

The breath whoofed out of him.

#

At his cry, Cherí shot down between the tables, a rocket, but slid on the smooth floor still wet from its mopping. Unable to negotiate the corner because of the slippery hallway, she slammed into the wall, collapsed onto the concrete, and banged her head. She lie there a few moments, stunned. The painting, hanging on the wall above her teetered, fell off its hook and the corner landed on her earlobe.

She swore.

#

John moaned, and started to get up. He made it to a sitting position and stopped to touch the back of his head. “Ouch!” He was going to have a lump.

The old man began to move. The old guy wasn’t getting up, rather he tipped over and landed on John, crashing onto his legs and chest.

Now, flat on his back again, he reached out to grab the sink to pull himself up, but in his dazed state, missed, and his hand fell upon the old man’s arm. It was cold as death...

Realization struck him like an eighteen-wheeler, he fainted where he lie, his head cracking again on the concrete.

#

Cherí grumbled, and rolled to her knees, holding her battered earlobe between thumb and forefinger, to staunch the bleeding. Before she could push herself to her feet, she heard a thump, which came from the direction of the men’s room, five feet away.

“John,” She called.

No answer.

“John!” She yelled. “What are you up to, what’s happening?”

Silence oozed from the bathroom. She made it to her feet, and pushed against the closed, unlatched door. She peeped in with the caution a squirrel uses to approach a walnut tree, ensconced in the yard of a Lakeland terrier. She slapped her hands to her cheeks in astonishment, oblivious to the blood dripping onto her shoulder, for there lie her husband, flat on his back, with an old man, pants around his ankles, buttocks displayed with evident pride, on top of him, his face buried in John’s neck.

#

The taller Anna stood close behind Cherí so she might see over her shoulder. Cherí twitched when she spoke, which bumped Anna, who, startled, jumped back. Her feet slipped on the smooth, damp, concrete floor, and her hands shot out to clutch for support and fell on Cherí’s shoulders, whose sweatshirt she grasped in panic.

Cherí toppled forward, tripped over the men on the floor, and fell against the far wall of the small lavatory. Her head crashed into the countertop, Anna fell with, and on top of her. The force knocked Cheí out, and she slumped onto the other bodies.

Anna fell onto the pile.

A whoosh, of air blew out of lungs.

#

Anna found herself the only one conscious. She was in shock and woozy. It occurred to her, that the easiest thing would be to join the others. However, in spite of her desire to give-in to the bliss of the comatose state, she fought it, crawled off the pile, and called 911.

‘Why didn’t I think to do that a half an hour ago,’ she mourned.

#

The story was on the front page of The Metro the next morning. A week later, the third page of said newspaper held further information, the results of the forensic team’s investigation regarding the strange occurrence, and the odd claims of the three survivors of the ‘Coffee Shop Incident.’

#

THE COFFEE SHOP INCIDENT

According to the coroner’s office, the death of Mr. James Richards on November 4th 2010, at the Wired Monk, Coventry Coffee shop, which is located on the corner of 64th Avenue and 186th Street, was by a massive heart attack, while he sat on the toilet of the men’s room of the aforementioned establishment.
Mr and Mrs Jones arrived, after a call from her employee, a Ms Anna Smith, to come to assist in waking the gentleman. The coroner stated emphatically, that waking him would have been difficult indeed, as Mr Richards was well and truly dead by that time.
The autopsy report and forensic evidence, showed death must have occurred at least two hours before closing.
Mr Richards’s family has set up a memorial in the men’s room at the coffee shop, and come each day with fresh flowers. However, Cherí Jones said, she had to move the scented candles as they were a fire hazard. They are now the accepted two meters from the toilet paper and paper towel dispensers, on a shelf, backed by additional layers of gypsum board in order to comply with WCB and fire regulations.
Our reporter discovered upon further investigation, that the men’s room is a sea of flowers, both fresh-cut and potted, leaving only two narrow paths, one leading to the sink and the other to the toilet, though neither is generally accessible to the needy, as there is a constant influx of individuals dropping off flowers, lighting candles, or gawking.
In addition to the rest, Cheri Jones’s cat, has taken to sleeping in the sink, and hisses at any who enter. It seems Samuel has become something of a mascot at the memorial.
The ladies room is being converted to a unisex, handicapped, restroom.