The silver door to the glass elevator slid open, and the polished wooden tiles of Floor 32 flushed a moment, stained by reflected chaos. Then the door slid shut, and the floor darkened back to a homelier shade, lit no longer by the abrasive clash of neon that filled the city outside. Only the warm glow of the coffeeshop’s simple chandeliers remained.
‘Coffeeshop’ was something of a misnomer, nowadays—‘New!’ and ‘Improved!’, ‘Tastier!’ and ‘Healthier!’ versions of the drink had killed the market for the original, leaving it a luxury for a chosen few, and the occupants of this coffeeshop did not seem particularly chosen. Most were somewhat dirty. Those that weren’t dirty looked tired. The girl who’d just entered belonged to both parties.
The bartender looked up, and the girl looked about with unfamiliarity stamped on her features. No one else stirred. The murmur of conversation was audible over the quiet jazz, if barely, but a sharp-eyed man would be hard pressed to catch anyone talking. Most seemed to be just staring—at the floor, at the table, at their laptops, into their drinks, into space—those two over there were staring into one another’s eyes—but the stillness in motion and sound alike was a world apart from the roaring hustle sealed outside. Time ran... slower, here.
“Can I get you anything, Miss?” asked the bartender, when the girl drifted nearer. He, too, spoke slowly.
“I heard your—your water is good,” babbled the girl. She paused and blushed, and looked around uneasily, as though it were a crime to speak too quickly. No reprimand was forthcoming. Yet she turned back and said, more carefully, “I... don’t quite believe that.”
“Don’t blame you,” said the bartender. “It’s a hundred credits a glass.”
“I was... expecting a—well, a higher charge than that,” said the girl. After a pause, she slid over a pair of plastic chips.
“I’d give it out for free if I could,” said the bartender.
He flipped a glass from one hand to the other and held it up to a keg on the wall in a single motion that seemed smooth rather than swift. Crystalline liquid spilled forth from the keg and bubbled, but it was already still by the time the bartender presented the glass to the girl.
“Thank you,” said the girl.
Stools stood there. She took one and sat, first staring at the water, then dubiously wrapping her fingers about the glass—then raising it, then taking a critical sip.
A long moment passed. Her brow wrinkled. The girl set the glass down, and began searching for words. Even though she was by profession a music critic, words failed her. What kind of adjective was she supposed to use for... this? Plain? Watery? Simple? Those kinds of words didn’t fly if you wanted to sell more music, and she’d have thought that doubly the case with drinks. And yet...
She took another sip, confused. Somehow it was good.
“This...” She paused, trying to get her words straight, trying to find one thing she could definitely say about it. “This is worth at least twice what you charged.”
“I remember the days when I didn’t have to charge at all,” said the bartender, his back turned. “Most I can do now is half-price refills.”
“You... rob yourself,” said the girl.
“Of all the men in this country, I consider myself the least defrauded,” said the bartender. “I at least know what we are missing out on—for we are indeed missing out on much more than pure water.”
“Wouldn’t it be better to not know?” asked the girl. (She checked the speed of her speech once more.) “Then you wouldn’t hurt from missing—whatever it is, that you’re missing.”
The bartender shrugged. “It’d be easier to not know,” he said. “That does not mean it would be better.”
The girl continued sipping.
Time passed. No one entered the coffeeshop or left it.
Soon, the glass was empty. The girl slid it back. The bartender took it to the sink and began to wash it; the grey city water and iridescent soap and frayed washcloth whirled where once had bubbled—something.
“I’m trying to describe it,” said the girl. “I can’t. But it’s like—like I should know how to. Only I don’t. It’s like—like an apartment from my childhood, that I came back to, once upon a time. I didn’t remember it, and yet it felt—dead. Like I should have remembered it. But this is the opposite—it’s like remembering your home, not knowing it’s yours.”
“That’s the secret of my water,” said the bartender. “It doesn’t try to sell itself, it’s not flashy and dazzling, it refuses to dance for you if it doesn’t want to dance—but it’s what you really desire, underneath all your yearnings for a rush of energy and a burst of excitement, or for a rumble of sickly-sweet pleasure and lethargic luxuriousness—you know, those things modern drink companies promise you they’ve got bottled up. But there’s something those drinks don’t have, something you feel like they should have. Something lacking. You want that missing thing more than the other things; you can’t really enjoy your luxuries if your simpler desires go unfulfilled... but there’s no words for those simple things. No catchphrases. You can’t describe a drink of water, because it’s the drink that all drinks are compared to. It’s the foundation. You didn’t know of this foundation till today—you’ve never had good water, only bad—but now that you’ve tasted its simplicity, completeness, purity... you’ll better know the taste of everything else. When you taste something else, you’ll better know the refreshment it gives, or fails to give—because you will see it in the light of its foundation: pure water.”
The bartender sighed as he dried the glass, setting it with the others.
“So it is with many foundations that our world has done its best to hide,” he finished.
The silvered Glass door slid open. Chaos emigrated forth from the elevator’s orifice, staining the tile’s wood in a pumpkin patch of colour. Shut slammed the door, and before the floor order returned. The abrasion once there, but a memory of bygone times. The homily glow of the coffee's shop returning to the dominant illumination.