Cave Writers
written by: RW
The man in the cloak sat down. He had been coming to this place before it was even a café–ever since it was just an abandoned cave where people came to write. He had been there when one person had the bright idea to start bringing coffee to the writers, and then to start selling coffee to the writers. He had been there when that person had announced to the cave that they had finally obtained the permits to build a café there, and he, like the others, had found a temporary new spot to write when the cave was closed for construction.
After it was built, he had watched all the original cave writers slowly stop coming to the café. The rustic brick walls, while nice, didn’t have the same appeal that rough stone walls had, they said. It just didn’t have the same effect on their writing. He heard rumors of a group that had congregated in another cave on the other side of the underground city.
But he liked the café. It was warm, the couches were soft, and the ambience of the fire calmed him. And the coffee was always a plus—although he wished it was still free.
Only one other person from the original group was still at the café. He couldn’t remember her name, but she looked a bit like a praying mantis, and he knew she had been a renowned actress and playwright—but she had stopped writing a long time ago, and now she just used the café as a place to talk with her friends. She was there now, animatedly describing her glory days.
“There really was nothing like it. You should have seen me up there on that stage, Margaret. I was…” She sighed. “…well, anyway. I could never go back–I don’t have the looks for it anymore.” She chuckled.
“I never really saw the appeal of theatre, myself.” Her friend–Margaret–took a bite of her scone. She chewed for a bit, swallowed, and continued. “But it sounds like it’s haunting you. I know they do theatre classes for adults at the park–you could check that out.”
“Maybe. God, I don’t know. I don’t know if I’m good at it anymore.”
Margaret said nothing.
Of course, people still wrote in the café. One of them was talking to himself.
“Okay, you can do this. You can do it. It can’t be that bad. Oh, god. Oh, no. It’s so bad. Okay. Okay–get it over with.”
He opened his laptop and navigated to a file labeled old writing, 2046-2048. He hovered over it with his mouse for a few moments before he slammed the laptop closed and began to sob. His black coffee sat next to him, untouched.
A pair of young lovers entered the café. They weren’t obnoxiously in love by any means, but you could tell by the way one of them paid for the other’s drink, and the way they sat right next to each other on the couch, legs and shoulders touching. They each worked on separate stories for a while, until one of them said–
“How long do you think it takes for someone to die by strangulation?”
Their partner looked at them, shocked. “What–you can’t just say that in the middle of a café! …four or five minutes, last I checked.” They paused. “Last I checked–like, last time I looked it up! Not…uh, anything else. I don’t kill people in my spare time,” they said, very convincingly.
Their partner chuckled and went back to writing.
The man in the cloak–well, the man who had set his cloak on the seat beside him a few minutes ago–heard the barista call his name. He got up and retrieved his coffee.
When he sat down again, there was–well, there was a skeleton sitting across from him. There was no other way to say it. A skeleton, wearing his cloak and sipping a coffee identical to his.
“Hello,” it said.
“Hello. What brings you here?”
“Looking for inspiration.”
“Then it seems we’re in the same boat.”
“Indeed. You’re a writer?”
“Yes.”
“What have you been writing?”
He paused. “Not much of anything, lately,” he admitted.
“Thinking of quitting?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, there’s still time.” The skeleton pulled a briefcase out from under the table. It opened it up to reveal a pile of papers. They looked to be typed up by typewriter and hastily edited in green ballpoint pen. “Pick one.”
“Excuse me?”
“Some of my ideas. Pick one.”
He complied. It was a lovely story about a lone traveler in the desert, but it ended rather abruptly near the beginning.
“Go ahead and finish that one,” the skeleton said.
“You’re sure?”
“Yeah—it’s all yours.”
“Well—thank you, Mr…”
The skeleton didn’t smile. It was a skeleton—it couldn’t have done that. But the skeleton smiled at him, mysteriously.
“Uh.” He paused. “I’m George. It was nice to meet you.” He extended a hand, and the skeleton shook it silently.
“Nice to talk to you as well.” The skeleton wasn’t smiling. It was a skeleton. But the skeleton’s grin was widening.
George suddenly felt extremely awkward. “I should be leaving,” he said, grabbing his bag.
“Alright. I’ll see you later.”
George had made it to the end of the block before he realized that he had left his cloak with the skeleton. He turned back and peered into the café, but both the skeleton and the cloak were gone.
- Cave Writers - June 26, 2026
