Before The Coffee Gets Cold
written by Toshikazu Kawaguchi
www.ink2quill.com

“Before The Coffee Gets Cold” is a scifi, drama, novel translated by Geoffrey Trousselot and written by the Japanese author Toshikazu Kawaguchi.

Before The Coffee Gets Cold Goodreads webpage

Before The Coffee Gets Cold Amazon webpage

“Before The Coffee Gets Cold” takes place in a coffee shop that has been around for at least 100 years and is always cold even in the hottest days of Summer and with a seat that will transport a person back in time, but there are rules and limitations to using the seat. There are about five rules to using the chair and going back in time and one of those rules is what inpires the title of the book. A person sitting in the right seat and traveling back in time must drink their coffee before it gets cold or they will replace the woman stuck in the chair. The limitations of the chair seem designed to keep people from chasing things which matter less like money and fortune. The people we see who use the chair to travel back in time do so to fix their lives and deal with feelings like guilt and love. It really is a beautiful idea.

The name of the tiny cafe is Funiculi Funicula probably from the famous song written at the late half of the 1800s. The cafe is a small place with little seating but with one of its seats that will transport a person back to the time of their choosing. A woman/ ghost/ supernatural entity sits and reads in the seat and it is only when she gets up to go to the bathroom that one can sit and travel back in time. Any attempts to force or cajole the woman out of the seat will result in getting cursed by the woman, as Fumiko finds out. This is a small limitation or rule to the seat but an interesting one. If you want to go back in time you just have to wait your turn for the reading woman to get up and go to the bathroom, like waiting in line at the grocery store.

Some more of the rules are that a person sitting in the chair cannot get up or they will be transported back to the present. A person sitting in the chair cannot change the present through their actions in the past and can only meet with someone who has already been to cafe. So, as you can see using the chair to travel back in time to get rich or chase some other trivial just won´t work but it is interesting how things work out for those people that use the chair. There are all kinds of pleasant surprises and heartbreaking moments.

“Before The Coffee Gets Cold” is four stories with characters whose lives are intertwined. I loved the pleasant nature of the characters and how Toshikazu Kawaguchi avoids the familiar negative patterns of time travel stories. You don´t have any military or evil plots by powerful organizations. Time travel in this story is simply, like a public service. Like going to the shop to get your phone fixed or the grocery store to get groceries where the characters look for the best solutions to make sense of or fix issues in their lives. That, I feel, is the best use of time traveling technology. Forget about weaponization or secret plots and intrigue.

The genius of this story is that it poses the question to the reader of what would you do if you could go back in time and fix parts of your life? And how would you do it? Now those might seem like more complex questions than they seem. All the people who go back in time have that question answered.

It´s true that the writing is a bit choppy but that´s the writing style of the day but It´s such a beautiful read. The story is really nice and I thank the person that suggested it. I really liked it and highly recommend it.

So, go read it for yourself and enjoy.

John

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