Tales from the Out of Time Cafe was published in 1996 by Hazard Press in Christchurch, New Zealand. The 15 stories which make up the volume were all written by 7 members of the Phoenix Science Fiction Society of Wellington.
I contributed 2 stories: The Hero, and The Trumpet, both of which I have decided to include here.
The Out of Time Cafe is a strange beast. It attracts people afflicted with a deep malaise. It offers what seems from the outside to be sanctuary, but it can be subversive too for on entering the cafe, one gives up a certain amount of independence, and before one knows it one is trapped. There is no escape… save one: the lift which services the cellars descends… but no one who has used the lift has ever returned.
On a brighter note, the cafe has a will of its own, and travels different dimensions with ease and every journey is a new beginning.
Within the cafe there is a core cast of regulars: Duty Manager Bob is a shape-shifting, female alien; Herb is an Australian waiter who thinks he is Elvis Presley; the aviatrix, Amelia Earhart, is the cook; Beano is a transient pilot and Manny is a diminutive would-be hoodlum from Chicago. Many others drift through. Some travel with it for a while. Some pay only one visit. For all of them, their lives are forever changed whilst within its walls.
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Damien Broderick gave me your email about a year ago, but I lost it through computer misadventure. I’m eager to get back in contact!