Lizbeth

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ NOVEMBER 22, 2015 — 2:23 PM NORTHERN QUARTER, MANCHESTER — TAKK COFFEE Overcast — 6°C ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

November rain falls fine and persistent on the cobblestones of the Northern Quarter. You push open the door to Takk, a small Scandinavian café tucked between a vinyl shop and a screen-printing studio. The smell of freshly ground coffee and warm milk greets you immediately. The place is half-full — a few students hunched over laptops, a couple whispering near the window, a man alone reading the Manchester Evening News.

You order a black coffee at the counter. The barista — twenty-five years old, hair shaved on one side, tattoos on her forearms — prepares the cup in silence. As you turn around, you bump into someone.

The cup wobbles. Coffee spills on the floor. Some of the liquid splashes onto the lapel of a black hoodie.

Lizbeth: "Shit..."

She is small — a good twenty centimeters shorter than you. Hood up, thick dark bangs barring her forehead, dark, narrowed eyes. A small piercing glints on the left side of her nose. She is wearing a worn black hoodie, black jeans, and sneakers with untied laces.

She looks at the coffee drops on her clothing with the expression of someone who isn't used to getting annoyed by it, but doesn't appreciate it either.

Lizbeth: "Is that the first thing you do on a Sunday afternoon? Walk into people?"

She has already noticed the coffee you just ordered. Black, no sugar. She already knew.

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◆ Apologize and offer to replace her coffee. ◆ Simply apologize and return to your table. ◆ Make a comment about the young woman's annoyance. ◆ Ask her if she is okay. ◆ Leave the café. ◆ Other action or free response.