Beth looked around the cafe as she cleaned the milk frother's nozzle. It was a normal evening, the store was full of people on their way home from the office, students settling in for a night of study or couples doing their best to carve out a few minutes of romance.
However, this meant the cafe was extremely noisy. When there were only a few people the noise was bearable, but when the place was full all of the sounds combined into a horrific atonal cacophony.
Beth had gotten good at ignoring it, but some days it was very hard to block it all out. As the noise started to echo in her head, Beth threw herself into serving customers, trying to focus her attention on them. The script of selling was oddly comforting, something that stayed the same regardless of Beth's mood.
After serving several customers Beth spotted someone coming in through the door. While the cafe had several regulars, this girl was both the most well known and the most mysterious.
This customer was always clad in a bright suit. She must have had loads of them as Beth had never seen the same one twice. Each of these suits was made from various colors and patterns of material, making it look like she had made them herself from fabric offcuts.
But it was her face that drew the most attention. This woman always wore white face paint with bright red circles on her cheeks, giving her an almost doll-like appearance. Or at least, Beth presumed it was face paint, it never seemed to smudge or fade, but Beth didn't think any human could be that pale and not collapse due to anemia.
As she served the other customers Beth's eyes constantly wandered back to the weird girl. Thankfully, the girl didn't seem to notice Beth's staring, in fact, she seemed to be in her own little world, totally oblivious to everyone around her.
When it came time to serve the strange girl, Beth was excited, keen to see just what this girl was like. "Evening! What can I get you?" Smiled Beth. The woman didn't respond, instead, she reached into her pocket and pulled out a notepad and tore off a sheet of paper before passing it to Beth.
Beth was slightly confused but quickly worked out what the girl was doing. Beth glanced down at the order and then smiled up at the girl. "Sure! If you want, you can sit down and I'll bring it over!" Chirped Beth.
She didn't usually do table service when the cafe was busy, but she wanted to do something nice for someone and this girl looked like she would appreciate it.
The girl smiled and nodded, quickly finding a table near the back of the room. As Beth started on the order, the noise started to assault her ears once more. She had been so focused on serving the strange girl that she had totally forgotten how noisy the cafe was.
Soon Beth had the order complete. For such a weird girl, it was a surprisingly normal order. Beth gripped the cup and started to walk towards the girl's table.
As Beth walked the noise seemed to grow louder and even more dissonant. The grinding of the coffee machine made it feel like her eardrums were going to shatter into a million shards.
Beth did her best to hide her discomfort, something she had done so many times in the past. But today the task felt impossible. Beth felt the muscles in her face contort into a grimace as she quickly tried to center herself and force a smile back onto her lips.
By the time she regained control of herself, she was right near the odd girl's table. "Here is your coffee," smiled Beth, leaning forward to put the cup down in front of the girl.
The odd girl looked into Beth's eyes for a few seconds before pointing at her own ears and making an exaggerated sad face.
"Yeah it is loud here," nodded Beth, impressed that she had been able to work the mime out so quickly. The girl quickly pointed to her ears again before pointing at Beth.
Beth's heart skipped a beat. Had this odd girl spotted her discomfort? Before Beth could think of anything to say the girl started to mime again. She pointed to Beth and covered her ears before patting the empty chair that sat next to her.
"Well," mumbled Beth. "It can get very loud here, but it is a lovely place, the cup is just hot," she rambled, trying to think of a way to brush off her expression without it getting her into trouble.
However, the girl just shook her head and tapped the chair again. Beth's brain quickly filled with images of her getting yelled at for ruining this girl's experience with her discomfort and her demanding to see the manager so she could complain about Beth's terrible customer service.
But Beth didn't see a good way out of this situation without causing more of a fuss. Beth let out a sigh and gently sat down, mentally preparing herself for an argument.
However, as she sat down it felt like she was putting her head into a bucket of water. The sound around her faded to a murmur before vanishing totally, leaving only perfect silence.
Beth blinked and gritted her teeth. She presumed she was going to turn around to find the whole store gazing at her, judging her for her terribly unprofessional behavior.
Despite her anxiety, Beth slowly turned her head, only to see that people were moving their mouths, but no words were coming out. Someone was operating the coffee grinder, and the beans were bouncing in the hopper, yet there was total silence.
Beth wondered if she was going mad, or if she had suddenly had an aneurysm. But as she looked across the table, she saw the mime girl smiling at her.
"Umm," blinked Beth, trying to work out what was going on. The mime girl tapped her ears again before giving Beth a thumbs up. "Yes, it is very nice, thank you," nodded Beth.
The silence allowed Beth to relax a little bit, however, the more she thought about the situation, the more confused she became. She just couldn't work out why she couldn't hear any sounds.
After a few moments, a piece of paper tapped against Beth's arm, shaking her from her thoughts. Beth looked at the mime girl and then down at the paper, quickly spotting the drawing on the page.
The picture was a cute cartoon depicting the mime stood in a little bubble. Various music notes were hitting the bubble and breaking into bits. At the far end of the bubble, was a cute little caricature of Beth, climbing into the bubble.
"Oh! So you have like an anti-sound bubble?" Asked Beth. Normally she would kick herself for believing in something so silly, but right now this girl was all she had to go on. There was no other explanation for the sudden silence.
The Mime girl nodded and smiled as she relaxed back into her chair and looked around the coffee shop. Beth also started to do the same. The lack of sound allowed her to notice things she had never noticed about the cafe before.
