One Day In a Cafe

I enter the caf é Hoping to get some writing done, which seems like a cliché And as I wait for my beverage I didn't notice that someone had taken a seat near me When I acknowledged his presence I noticed his face was filled with a familiarity that I couldn't explain A familiarity understood once he stated his name was Mark Twain And I stood there in awe With the floor in contact with my jaw Three men shake my hand And a similar feeling hits me I don't know them Yet I do "Ernest, Edgar, and Charles, how do you do?" Hemingway, Poe, Dickens? "Do my eyes deceive?" "No they do not my friend" said George Orwell And I shook my head as I disbelieve That they stood before me And then a voice enters the room, yes a voice! That belonged to the great James Joyce "What are the odds? That these literary Gods Blasphemy not intended Who over the years have offended and whose popularity has distended They all looked at one another Each looking more strange than the other "We have something to tell you" "Tell me" I said "You are dead" Said Twain speaking up for the rest And a jolt travels through my chest One Two, Clear As the cafe transforms into a tunnel of white light The scene goes bright As the greatest authors in history vanish before me I awake in a hospital bed with doctors hovering over me I live with one regret of not saying to them what I desired to say But one thing is for sure I will never forget that day in the cafe