The Mysterious Café

Lenny's Corner Café. A perfectly ordinary café run by a perfectly ordinary guy. Or so everyone thought, everyone except Mr Leech that is. Mr Leech knew better. Mr Leech knew about the deep dark secrets that haunted the seemingly harmless café. He was staring one in the face right now. Or rather a secret was staring him in the face and he was trying hard not to pass out from fright. He never should have let his brother enter the afterlife without answering at least some of his questions about the running of his café, he reflected as he gaped at the strange being hovering above the urn. In fact, he never should have let his brother enter the afterlife at all, even if he was paralysed for the rest of his life, at least he would have been able to keep his urn full of secrets to himself and Mr Leech would have been able to run his café without running into any nasty surprises. “Who the hell are you?” the secret asked looking rather crossly at him “where's Lenny?”

“Y..your a,a genie” Mr Leech spluttered.

“ Oh excellent observation! Now where is Lenny?” the genie asked , talking to him as if he was a slow child. “D...dead” Mr Leech stammered. The genie scowl immediately vanished.

“Oh” he breathed “oh then I'm sorry for my manner's Master.”

“Master!” Dear God, if Lenny had a genie to grant him whatever he wished then why the hell had he let himself succumb to cancer?! In fact why had he decided to run a café instead of living in luxury on a remote island somewhere? He voiced these questions to the genie who looked at him a little sadly, “he wanted you to have all my wishes, that's why. To Lenny I was just a friend, nothing more, nothing less.”

“But...but why?!”

“Oh” the genie sighed softly “you really have no idea do you. He didn't tell you anything about his other life.”

“What other life?!” Mr Leech spluttered as a nasty feeling of revelation stole over him, all those times Lenny had disappeared mysteriously, all the phone calls at odd hours from his mysterious friends . His brother really had been keeping things from him.

“His supernatural life.”

“You mean he's not human?!” Mr Leech squawked, leaping up from the booth. The genie burst out laughing, tears of mirth pouring down his green cheeks. “Oh hahahaha! Really? That's your theory? Haha! He was helping us you moron! Not all humans are afraid of supernatural beings and not all who aren't afraid of them hunt them. Sure he did a bit of hunting when there was something deliberately hurting innocent people but apart from that he helped us.”

“Oh, right, well that explains a lot” he murmured thinking back to when his brother had occasionally come home with scratches and bruises on his face and arms that he claimed to be from accidents on the rugby pitch. “So do you want me to do the same thing?”

The genie tilted his large head and blinked. “Are you asking me what I think you should do?”

“Yes! If I'm gonna do this then I need your help. I've..I've only just found out about this stuff. You can't just expect me to automatically know which creatures to slay and which ones to help!”

“You don't slay any of them” the genie answered “not unless your life or the lives of others are in danger and by danger I mean they actually do want to hurt people their not just defending themselves or their families.”

“So you want me to do what my brother did?”

“Yes”.

“Do I have a choice?”

“Erm, more of a moral responsibility to society both human and non human and a duty to carry on your brother's very nice legacy. Oh and your brother commanded me to refuse you any wishes unless you carry on his work.” Mr Leech groaned and threw his hands into the air in frustration. He reflected that he really should have just thrown the urn into the bin without opening it. A life of dealing with supernatural beings whose existence he was happily unaware of a few moments ago in exchange for a few wishes. How the hell was that fair?!

Published 30th of October 2016