It was not the fault of the Pumpkin Café that my train arrived at Haywards Heath more than half an hour late; this was due to the unfortunate combination of malevolent weather conditions, a person being hit by a previous train, and a small dog escaping the train I was on while it idled at Gatwick Airport. Only the Pumpkin Café, however, could be blamed for the lack of chemistry between the two members of staff behind the counter.

Working the coffee machine was a short, dishevelled man of Hispanic appearance. He loaded the capsules and filters in desperate haste, as though suffering from the burden of great harassment (there were, after all, at least two customers to be served). All the while he spat barely concealed venom at his colleague, a meek and probably pleasant enough woman whose lack of definite features created an instantaneous crisis of confidence within all those who set eyes on her. She looked like a marshmallow.

They were a poor man's Al Pacino and a destitute man's Michelle Pfeiffer, starring in some awful remake of 90s diner-set romance Frankie and Johnny, which for some reason was being staged at the Pumpkin Café at Haywards Heath station last Monday evening.

"You get more milk!" he barked charmlessly over his shoulder. There were now at least four customers to be served, so Pacino couldn't leave his machine for one second.

"God I need some milk!" he hissed at the ceiling of the Pumpkin Café at Haywards Heath station, obviously believing it to be a direct conduit to the Holy Father.

Alas, He in His great wisdom did not hear Pacino's prayer; and neither did the marshmallow Pfeiffer.

"You," he spluttered (the poor woman's name appeared to be You), "you go home now. ¿Why not you go home? Go, go…"

Then, taking the back of a hand to his glistening brow, he mustered all the experience he had gained at drama school, the stage and Hollywood to add with great pathos, not at her but at his reflection in the coffee machine: "I will get the milk… I get the milk myself!"

I turned around. There had formed a queue of several people, many of who looked as though they had the word 'solutions' in their job title.

Al seemed to be deciding whether to die on the spot or say "hoo-ha!". Meanwhile, the marshmallow Pfeiffer was emerging from the back room, laden with milk cartons. She took my order and repeated it, reluctantly, to her evil lord. Finally, I could empathise with Jack when he gets to the top of the beanstalk and begs the giant's wife for soup.

Keeping in character, Al did not betray a flicker of emotion at the arrival of the cow juice. Pfeiffer noted this with a wry smile; this was evidently not the first time her labours had been spent without reward.

My connecting train was coming in. I enquired as to the delivery of my hot chocolate. Pfeiffer rotated 360 degrees while opening and shutting her mouth slowly. Pacino started thrusting at his machine like a stoker on the Titanic.

The train doors were opening, I had seconds to spare, but this was of no concern to Al Pacino at the Pumpkin Café at Haywards Heath station who worked at the mercy of his blasted contraption while harbouring an unspoken love of marshmallows.

Suddenly the beverage was ready; all that remained was for a lid to be secured onto the rim of the cup.

Tina Turner's Simply The Best was piping from the Pumpkin Café's sound system as Pfeiffer snatched my medium hot chocolate from her potential lover's clawed hand and attempted to apply a small lid, which floated down into the alarming gap between the liquid I had paid for and the summit of the cup. Shaking, she fished it out, and time stood still as she then plumped for a large lid and began a heroic effort to fit the thing. But the thing would not fit.

To my horror, I noticed that Pacino was now considering the three stacks of different-sized lids – small, medium and large – so as to determine which lid should be applied to my medium hot chocolate before taking the swooning marshmallow Pfeiffer into the back room for a good hard fuck.

I snapped them out of it by demanding that they forget about the lid.

Time stood still.

This was the first time in history that the Pumpkin Café at Haywards Heath station had served a beverage without a lid. It wasn't in the script; stunned, Al and his marshmallow muse stared dumbly at each other, at me, and then at the queue of solutions like a pair of cows contemplating unexpected ramblers.

*

Epilogue

Through the window of my departing train, I watched as Pacino burst from the Pumpkin Café and ran up and down the platform screaming: "Attica! Attica!"