Sweet Chocolate

"Hmmmm?

Did the bell on the front door ring?

Ah! Welcome, esteemed guest, to Chocolate Kiss Cafe!

Enter and be transported to our rustic haven, where you can relax and have some quiet conversation.

Our coffee is the best, our cakes will leave you obsessed.

So come, sit down and take a break. Our service is the best, so no need to hesitate!

But a word to the wise, listen for I tell no lies.

If on your table a fox shall appear, take it with you, don't leave it here.

For the fox will grant a wish, to those who don't resist.

But a curse will be given to those who make the wrong decision.

Ah but I digress…

This one should let you rest.

So sit back and enjoy the bliss that you will experience from Choco Kiss!"

I watched as the Mad Hatter chanted his welcome before he ushered me to an empty table. He looked as crazy as ever with that smile of his that reached ear to ear.

It's been years since I've visited this place, which had always seemed like something straight out of a fairy tale. In fact, I was the one who named the attendant 'Mad Hatter' two decades back. It was because he reminded me of the character in Alice in Wonderland. And yes, he even wore the iconic top hat.

Back then, the cafe really had a fantasy feel to it. Walls and floors made of stone, wooden tables and chairs, oak barrels, and warm, dim lighting courtesy of countless candles on every table as well as scattered around the entire interior. Even the chandelier was filled with candles.

In the past, the customers seemed larger than life and, although I could only see their silhouettes, I knew they were not humans. Some were in the shape of a bear, some are small, like ferrets, and some had humanoid shapes but sported what seemed to me as tails. They talked in a language that I could not understand nor recognize. Thinking back, the words sounded very archaic.

This time around, the silhouettes looked like those of normal humans. So much so that I wondered if it was because of my childishness that made me see them as beings you can only hear in stories or see on TV.

I craned my neck a bit to listen to those at the table next to mine talk. I couldn't help but feel disappointed when I realized that I still can't understand a word they were saying.

"What would it be, Master?" the Mad Hatter asked me as he handed me the menu.

I glanced at him incredulously.

I have been to this place hundreds of times in my childhood and the sequence would always be the same, like a play being performed repeatedly. First, the Mad Hatter would sing his silly rhyme before giving me a table. Then, he would bring me a treat depending on the season. In springtime, it would be a tart or any fruity dessert. In hot summer months, it would be an ice cream sundae or a banana split. Autumn would be pumpkin pies and apple cobblers. And the cold winter months would mean smores, hot cocoa, and eggnog.

This was the first time the Mad Hatter had asked me what I wanted.

He looked at me with his bulging eyes and that wide smile that for a moment I wondered how I wasn't afraid of him as a kid.

I looked down at the menu and decided to choose the first one that caught my eye.

"I'll have a carrot cake and a cafe Americano."

The items appeared on the table in a blink of an eye.