I'm finding some
truth in my
coffee cup. It's half full of mud-colored liquid and it's been full for the last few hours. I'm at the point where I need more coffee to stay awake, but I'm not sure if
staying awake is what I need right now. I think I've been in this
diner for three days. It's pretty good coffee, even if I can't drink any more right now. I wonder if the
flavor is the same even though it's gotten cold. If you let coffee stand for a while it's just not the same . . . You either have to warm it up again or add more coffee. Adding
sugar or
cream doesn't do anything for the temperature.
You could drink it cold but you probably wouldn't enjoy it. Maybe I put too much cream in . . . Maybe that's what made it get cold. But then again, it would have gotten cold eventually anyway. I wonder if I'll finish this cup or if I'll just leave it here. I'm sure no one else will drink it if I leave it. It's full of my cream, my sugar, and my
germs. I stir the coffee in my head. It's still pretty cold.
I think about the beans used in that coffee . . . Those beans grew under a sun that's familiar, but they grew inside of an Earth I'll never know. I want to know what they know. The coffee beans I drank three hours ago. But not now. I added my cream and sugar to other cups in the same glass. Three days ago. But for some reason I'm stuck on this half cup of mud-colored liquid. I have to drink it, or add more, or leave it there, paid for but unconsumed. I'd like to drink it just to say I finished the cup, but the coffee isn't enjoyable to me right now. Exposure to the air has taken all its heat to the point where I can no longer appreciate its flavor . . . That or my tastes have changed. Maybe if I drink that coffee I'll be sick. Maybe I'll throw it all up in the bathroom. I should just wait until I want to drink it. But by then it might have aged too much.
The cream I put in there is from cows from my land. The sugar was harvested in my country's fields. But these coffee beans . . . they're something else.
Maybe I should drink the stuff and be done with it. I've been in this diner for three days. Is there any truth in this coffee at all? If there is, it's gotta be in this half cup of mud-colored liquid. I taste it and it freezes on my tongue. I choke it down but there's no way the rest of that will make it. The waiter gestures at me with his pot of black coffee. His face inquires without his voice.
Gratefully, I extend my cup.