(Best read aloud in a dull baritone)

So, I'm sitting in this cafe, my beverage a battleground between coffee beans and sugar, both vying to become the dominant flavour (the latter is winning). Dull muzak seeps drearily out of the sound-systems, but my mind, evidently on random playlist, is thudding with the sounds of Tom Waits singing about goin' out west without a shirt, accompanied only by steel guitar and what appears to be the mother of all wobbleboards. Dimly, I wonder how close Rolf Harris' ties with blues music are.

The atmosphere is gloomy, fatalistic even. Everybody sips from their cups idly and stare at the walls, as if trying to decode some alien message of doom. This prompts me to run through various apocalyptic futures presented in fiction (some paradoxically now in the past eg. The Stand), settling eventually on the one presented in Neon Genesis Evangelion (I recently rewatched the series. I'm inspired; a rudimentary set of lyrics begins to coalesce: 'Questions whose answers we sorely lack/Was Pen-Pen really high on crack?/And what/What the hell/What the hell is a Sea of Dirac?' Substituting for the instruments, I break out into an air gutar solo, complete with gurning, posturing and attempted high notes. The crowd stare at me as if I'm some new and interesting breed of terrorist. Chastened, I hunch over and finish my drink in silence.

(And you though this story would go somewhere. Muahahahaha!)