June Miller had owned The Morning Glory Café for twenty-three years, and she thought she'd seen every type of customer possible in a small-town diner. That was before the woman in the iridescent jumpsuit appeared at table seven, ordering coffee that hadn't been invented yet.33Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ67HH4tkBzh
"Caramel-lavender fusion with oat milk and temporal stabilizers, please," the woman said, not looking up from what appeared to be a holographic newspaper floating above her palm.
June blinked. "I'm sorry, we just have regular coffee. Black, or with cream and sugar."
The woman finally looked up, her eyes widening. "Oh! What year is it?"
"2024."33Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqR92lMiWhe
"Ah." The woman's face softened into an apologetic smile. "My mistake. Regular coffee would be lovely. Black, please. And maybe some of those blueberry muffins in the display case? They don't exist anymore where I'm from."33Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQK0wTMoeR3
That was how it started. June never asked how or why her modest café had become a waypoint for time travelers. She just adapted, the way she had when her husband died, when the mall opened on the outskirts of town and threatened to put her out of business, when the world shut down for a pandemic. She added a small sign near the register: "Please specify your temporal point of origin when ordering."
The regulars—the present-day ones—took it in stride. This was a small town, after all. They had to find their entertainment somewhere.
The first few travelers were cautious, careful not to reveal too much. They sat quietly, savoring foods that apparently no longer existed in their time, occasionally wiping away tears over a perfect piece of apple pie or a fresh-baked cookie.
But as weeks passed and word seemed to spread (would spread? had spread?) through time, the visitors became more talkative. June started keeping a journal.
April 15, 2024: A teenage boy from 2157 spent three hours explaining to Mrs. Henderson how her garden would become the genesis of a revolutionary urban farming movement. Mrs. Henderson, who had been threatening to pave over her troublesome tomato patch, changed her mind.
April 23, 2024: A quantum physicist from 2089 graded papers while eating pancakes. She told June that this café was famous in her time—not for the food, but for being an anomaly, a place where the barriers between years wore thin. "Like a worn spot in the fabric of time," she explained, pouring an impossible amount of syrup on her pancakes. "We still don't understand why."
May 1, 2024: An elderly man from 2042 sat at the counter, crying over his coffee. When June asked what was wrong, he explained that his younger self would walk through the door in exactly seventeen minutes. "I couldn't save my wife back then," he said. "I was working too much, missed the warning signs. But maybe..." He left a note wrapped around his coffee cup.
May 2, 2024: The same man, but younger, found the note. June watched him read it, saw the color drain from his face. He ran out without paying. (The older version had tipped enough to cover both visits, plus eighteen years of inflation.)
Some visitors came from just a few years ahead, others from centuries in the future. They all seemed to find exactly what they were looking for, though it wasn't always what they expected.
A woman from 2093 spent an entire afternoon teaching June's granddaughter Katie how to code using napkins and coffee stirrers as visual aids. "In my time," she said, "this café is a historical landmark. There's a plaque about Katherine Miller, the programmer who revolutionized quantum computing. I always wondered who taught her the basics."
A man in a weathered leather jacket arrived from 2049, ordered coffee and a slice of cherry pie, and proceeded to write what he claimed would be the century's greatest novel on a stack of paper napkins. "Can't do this at home," he explained. "Too many distractions. Screens everywhere, ads beamed directly into our brains. Here, it's quiet. Pure."
Not all visits were happy. A group of environmental scientists from 2072 came for lunch, their eyes filling with tears at the sight of real beef burgers. "Enjoy it while you can," one muttered. June started offering more vegetarian options the next day.
The hardest was the woman who arrived late one rainy night in October. She was young, fashion model gorgeous, with a sadness in her eyes that seemed to come from somewhere beyond time.
"You're June Miller," she said. It wasn't a question.
"Yes."
"I'm Alexandra. Your great-granddaughter."
June sat down hard in the nearest chair. "But Katie's only twelve."
"She'll have a daughter, Emma. Emma will have me." Alexandra's hands trembled as she reached into her pocket and pulled out a photo. "I came to warn you. In three months, Katie will be offered a chance to attend a prestigious science program in Boston. In my timeline, you let her go."
June studied the photo. It showed an older version of herself, thin and tired, standing in front of a boarded-up café. "What happens?"
"You try to run this place alone. Work too hard. Have a stroke. The café closes, and without its influence..." Alexandra's voice cracked. "So many things change. Those scientists who came from 2072? Their research never happens because they weren't inspired by their visits here. The quantum computing revolution starts a decade later. The novelist never writes his book. All those little moments, those connections—they matter more than anyone knew."
June thought about Katie, about her dreams and the opportunities she deserved. "So I have to choose between my granddaughter's future and all of this?"
Alexandra smiled, and June recognized her own mother's expression in this stranger's face. "No. You have to choose to let people help you. In my time, you were too proud. But there's a solution so simple..." She told June what to do.
The next day, June put up a "Help Wanted" sign. She hired three local high school students and a retired teacher who'd always wanted to learn to bake. When the letter came about Katie's science program, June had enough help to keep the café running and still visit Boston every other weekend.
The visitors kept coming. June started recognizing some of them—not from their previous visits, but from the changes she'd seen ripple through her own time. The quantum physicist's theories were already being discussed in scientific journals. The novelist's napkin manuscript had been published to critical acclaim. Mrs. Henderson's urban farming techniques were spreading across the county.
But there were still surprises.
One morning, a man in his thirties sat at the counter, ordered black coffee, and watched June with an intensity that made her uncomfortable.
"Can I help you with something else?" she asked.
"You already did." He smiled. "Fifty-three years from now, I'll be diagnosed with a rare form of cancer. But thanks to research done by a scientist who was inspired by her visits to this café, they'll catch it early. I'll live."
June had stopped questioning these stories, but something about this man seemed familiar. "When are you from?"
"2029. Just five years from now. I'm not really a time traveler." He pulled out his wallet and showed her his driver's license. The name hit her like a physical blow: Thomas Miller.
"Katie's father," June whispered. Her son, who she'd lost to a car accident before Katie was born.
"Hey, Mom." His eyes were bright with tears. "I can't stay long. Just wanted you to know—you're doing a good job. With Katie, with all of this. Keep going."
He finished his coffee, hugged her for a long time, and walked out the door. June never saw him again, either version of him.
Years passed. Katie grew up, went to college, got married. June's hair turned gray, then white. The café evolved—new paint, new equipment, new staff—but kept its essential character. The visitors continued to arrive, each with their own story, their own reason for seeking out this particular worn spot in time.
June started teaching her great-granddaughter Alexandra—the one from this timeline—how to run the place. She was different from the Alexandra who had visited that rainy night, happier somehow, more settled in herself. But she had the same gentle way with customers, the same intuitive understanding of what each person needed, whether they were from this time or another.
On June's seventy-fifth birthday, the café was unusually busy. Visitors from at least six different decades packed the tables, all claiming they couldn't miss this particular day. Even Mrs. Henderson, now ninety-three and still tending her revolutionary garden, came in for coffee and pie.
Late in the afternoon, when the crowd had thinned, a familiar face appeared at the counter—the quantum physicist, older now, her hair streaked with silver.
"Figured it out finally," she said, accepting a cup of coffee. "Why this place, this time."
"Oh?" June had long since stopped trying to understand the mechanics of it all.
"It's you, June. Your choices, your kindness, your willingness to adapt without losing what matters—they created a kind of temporal resonance. A harmony that echoes through time." She laughed at June's confused expression. "Simply put, you made this place a home for everyone, no matter when they came from. That kind of love... it transcends time."
June looked around her café. Alexandra was serving pie to a group of children who, according to their clothing and slang, came from somewhere in the 2160s. Katie, visiting for the birthday celebration, was deep in conversation with what appeared to be her own great-great-granddaughter. At a corner table, a young man was writing on napkins—perhaps the next great novel, or the solution to some future crisis, or just a love letter to someone not yet born.
Time, June had learned, was not a straight line. It was more like a cup of coffee, with cream slowly swirling in, creating patterns that looked random but somehow made perfect sense. And sometimes, in small places like this, those patterns came together in ways that changed everything.
She picked up the coffee pot and made her rounds, refilling cups from past, present, and future. Just another day at The Morning Glory Café, where tomorrow's stories were always welcome, and yesterday's coffee was always fresh.
The next morning, June added a new sign next to the old one about temporal points of origin. It read: "The future is always welcome here. So is the past. But right now is pretty good too."
Then she unlocked the door, turned on the lights, and waited to see what time would bring.33Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡD79VZPjoXh
