The Regular with the Red Hands

The universe does not end in fire or ice, but in quiet conversation over coffee.

The café hung suspended in a place where time had long since folded in on itself like a well-worn napkin. Stars blinked in and out like candle flames. Moons drifted lazily past windows. The café itself—small, wood-paneled, warm—smelled perpetually of cardamom and stories.

Mira wiped the counter with a cloth that had once been part of a starship sail. She was not in a hurry. Nothing rushed here. The cat, who had no name and all names, curled in the window and regarded the cosmos with the same disinterest as a deity.

The bell above the door didn’t chime—it laughed, like a child waking from a dream. That was how Mira knew someone new had arrived.

The man who entered had red-stained hands.

He sat at the far booth, near the window that overlooked a dying quasar, and didn’t speak. Mira brought him a cup of something warm anyway. She always did. No one walked into The Last Sip without needing something—even if they didn’t know what.

He didn’t drink. Just stared at the mug.

“Blood or paint?” Mira asked, sitting across from him.

He blinked. “What?”

“Your hands. They’re red. I’ve learned not to assume.”

He looked down at them as if surprised. “Oh,” he said. “Both, I think.”

The cat leapt onto the table, placing itself precisely in the space between them. The man didn’t flinch.

“Do you know where you are?” Mira asked.

He nodded. “End of the universe. I thought I’d find oblivion. But I found a café.”

“You found both,” she said, smiling. “Just depends on what you order.”

A pause. Then:

“I killed people,” he said. “And I created them. I was a general. Then I was a poet. Somewhere in between I was something human.”

The cat meowed. Loudly. Mira scratched behind its ears.

“That’s all?” she said.

He frowned. “Isn’t that enough?”

“No,” she replied softly. “It’s just part of the story. But not the end.”

They sat in silence as the stars wheeled and wept.

“Do they come back?” he asked. “The ones I lost?”

“They do. Here,” Mira said, pointing to his chest. “And sometimes, if you’re lucky, through that door.”

The bell laughed again. A woman stepped in—her hair silver as nebula mist, her eyes full of lifetimes. The man gasped.

“Anna?”

She looked at him. Said nothing. Walked to the counter. Ordered tea.

Mira raised a brow. “Looks like you’ll have company.”

He tried to stand, but the weight of guilt—or maybe time—held him in place.

The cat jumped into his lap. Purred. He cried.

Mira, for the thousandth time in eons, poured another cup.

Outside, the stars ended. Inside, life—quiet, fractured, eternal—went on.

Even at the edge of everything, healing takes place over something as simple as coffee and the unexpected return of someone thought lost. In a space beyond time, the universe offers one last mercy: conversation.