Once upon a time, in a magical fantasy land just around the corner from my apartment, there was a coffee shop. And this coffee shop was good and quaint and had well-behaved customers and made a mean cappuccino. There were comfy chairs and a few well-thumbed copies of the Reader and a perky barista who smiled as she served the blueberry muffins. And it was Good.

But five doors away from the coffee shop of Good sat the mean, bad and derelict coffee shop, the kind that advertised fresh donuts - Made Fresh Daily! - but obviously bought them in a box, wholesale. The kind that made weak drip coffee for 55 cents a cup but sternly warned that There Are No Refills. And it was Forsaken.

But the worst part about the Forsaken shop was the customers: men with sunken eyes staring forlornly into the bottoms of their Styrofoam cups. It was like the waiting room of Hell. These lost souls weren’t yet in the fire-and-brimstone, eternal torment Hell, but were merely waiting for the door to open.

Big Yuppie Developer Man, who owned a controlling stake in a condo unit next to the coffee shop of Good, decided his prospective tenants wouldn’t appreciate passing the antechamber to the underworld every day on their way to the their jobs. See, the coffee shop that was Forsaken was connected to a train stop, where all the munchkins and elves would go merrily to their shoe-cobbling and merry-making places of employment.

‘Bad is the coffee shop that is Forsaken,” Big Yuppie Developer Man said thoughtfully. ‘The good residents in the magical land of Chicago-ton don’t need to be reminded of the bad things in life, just as long as they stay current on their leases. Woe to those who fall behind on mortgages.”

Using his influence, BYDM forced the coffee shop that was Forsaken into selling its property rights, just before brokering a move for the coffee shop that was Good. And to where did the coffee shop that was Good relocate? Into the recently-emptied space where men with sunken eyes stared forlornly into the bottoms of their Styrofoam cups.

Suddenly the space became bright and cheery. But some traces of the coffee shop that was Forsaken must have lingered in that storefront space, for the comfy chairs were replaced with cheap IKEA pseudo-ergonomic knockoffs and the cheery, smiling barista was replaced with a pierce-ed, tattoo-ed man who didn’t know a cappuccino from a double short, skinny, extra caramel, blended coffee with room for cream. Apparently the spirits of the coffee shop that was Forsaken were active and restless.

Believing the threat from non-attractive customers extinguished, BYDM was free to complete his dream of yuppie-fying all of Chicago-ton. The pixes and elves and dwarves and munchkins were free to sing and dance and play.

But I’ll be honest: I miss Hell’s waiting room. At least it had character. And those wholesale donuts weren’t half-bad, either.