Le Grand Café de la Poste
She always chose the same table.
Just to the right,
before entering the main Café.
Not entirely because it offered the best view.
Not because the service was any different there.
Simply because,
after a few mornings,
it had become hers.
Soft music.
Jazz,
always jazz.
The kind of music that quietly invites you to step back in time,
to an era
when grace and elegance were simply a way of life.
The morning paper was still waiting,
clipped to its wooden reading stick.
She rarely opened it immediately.
First came the ritual.
How she loved rituals.
Watching the waiter greet familiar faces.
The elder French couple, coming there every winter season.
The silver tray carrying tiny glasses of water.
The sunlight slowly finding its way through.
The palms moving ever so slightly in the morning breeze.
Only then would she unfold the newspaper.
A little further inside,
different encounters unfolded.
Soft leather sofas.
Palm trees reaching towards the high ceiling.
Worn leather poufs.
Conversations that lingered over coffee rather than hurried between appointments.
The French Protectorate could still be felt in the air.
And yet…
The years had passed.
It was no longer a place of exclusion.
Tourists now shared the room with locals.
The city had become louder.
Faster.
More connected.
Yet somehow,
this place had remained faithful to itself.
She often wondered if places,
just like people, carried a soul.
Not because they refused to change,
but because they knew what was worth keeping.
Perhaps that was why she kept returning.
Not for the coffee.
Not even for the jazz.
But for the quiet reminder that elegance is never found in luxury.
It is found in attention.
She folded the newspaper,
took the last sip of her coffee,
and stepped back into the streets of Marrakech.
The jazz remained behind, as if waiting for tomorrow.
La FlâneuZe