Part 1: The Prophet

Ive been doing alot of poetry lately on this blog, but I'm going to try and change it up with a short story I wrote.  Its going to be part of a bigger series where I want to write stories that explore the different views and feelings toward the main theme, coffee.  this is the first installment of the "coffee chronicles."

"Jet fuel, java juice, cup of joe, cup of dirt!"

"One sugar, two sugar, black, white!"

"From its bold and daring aroma right down to the smooth sensation as it slides down your throat, this is the answer, friends!  In a sock or in your mom's kitchen, the panacea of all creation!  The bittersweet vomit of angels in heaven, the Promethean flame of the whole of human invention!!"

With that last point, he banged his fist on the flimsy table in emphasis, which made all the chess pieces rattle out of their squares and crash over like bowling pins.  I hadn't even started that game.  I hadn't even started this conversation.

"Karl Marx is wrong," he said frankly.  "The coffee bean, friend!  It is the 'history of all hitherto existing society'!  Nothing so potent and influential has ever been plucked out of the ground, so lovingly grinded and caressed into that sweet smelling powder, so brutally smashed into those glossy bright packages to be shipped around the world for all to enjoy.  It is the fuel of industry, the means by which we build our demented society and brilliantly burgeoning buildings of radiating steel and good intentions.  The muse of wild eyed artists and maniac bankers who build and destroy everything, just so we can build it again and AGAIN!"

He leaned back in his chair, eagerly savoring the taste of his words and taking another sip from that all too familiar paper cup and sleeve.  His plaid shirt sleeves were splitting at the seams, and his baseball cap barely contained his full head of hair, which made his locks shoot out in all directions.  Like some ancient sun god, giving him the strange aura of a forgotten race, the last of his kind.  There was nearly nothing to differentiate him from any common homeless lunatic, except the paper sack full of library books at his feet and his So-ho black framed glasses.  His scathing green eyes seemed like they were peering into my soul and asking "yes, and?"  Like he was hanging on the end of your every sentence.  The class of university professor that eccentric coffee shops like this one tend to attract.

Though not usually on a Saturday night.

"So, where did you say -"

"THE MONKEYS!" he yelled triumphantly.  Eyes were wide as saucers.

Strike one.

"What do you think the first thing they did when they hopped out of the trees, eh?  The first thing they did before inventing the whole of human civilization?  Think they picked up some bones and maimed a bunch of tapers?  NO SIR!  They went to a bush, plucked out a coffee bean, crushed it to powder, and passed boiling water through it until that black gold came pouring forth like the fountain of youth!  Coffee, friend!  One simple drink, and your blood comes pumping through your veins like never before.  You can conquer the world!  One sip, look!  He's invented the wheel!  Next sip, he's built an entire city.  Another sip and he's built an empire.   Before the bottom of the cup, he's painting the Mona Lisa and writing books on existentialist philosophy.  All thanks to what...?"

He stared expectantly, almost daring me to ask.  The answer came bursting forth like water from a dam, saliva and all.

"COFFEE!"

I accepted my fate.  I put my textbook down slowly and took the bait.

"you like coffee?"

His answer come spitting forth with precipitation at every word.

"Like?!"  He sputtered and gasped at my proposition, like a car thats out of fuel.

"Like, friend?!  My delicious comrade, coffee is not something you simply 'like'!" he said with disdain.  "Coffee is not like your little buddy Jason down the street that you 'like' to play with on a lazy saturday afternoon.  Coffee is not like the fun little walks you 'like' to take on Sunday mornings when the neighbors are too hung over to shout at you!"

"FAR BE IT!"

Another pound.  Another small earthquake.  He flicked at a piece of dirt while he considered his next words

"No, we're not simpletons anymore, junior," he acknowledged.  "No longer a bunch of country folk that can be content in the old ways, the neighborly chats, the strolls down the block, and the white picket fences.  Instead, we chose to leave it in the dust and head for the cities, the frantic wall streets, the roaring subway cars.  The firm assurance that every moment would be unlike any other moment you could experience, and that every next second holds the next page in the book, the next note in the symphony.  The brilliant, cacophonous symphony of human progress."

Tipping the coffee cup to his lips, he drained it.  I briefly considered the notion of bolting for the door but saw that it was blocked by a wild eyed hipster getting reception in the doorway.  I attempted to get a word in, but his seamless monologue allowed no space for interpretation.  Strike two.

"The journalists, the businessmen, the politicians, the bankers, the professors, the students; all of them typing and trudging through the twilight to the better future.  They're sacrificing their families, their homes, their sanity, all for the chance to move humanity forward!  The crowning principle of urban achievement!"

He considered his plastic coffee cup with a wide eyed grin.

"And THIS is what makes all of this madness possible!  Without coffee, we were slave to the sabbaths, the siestas, the afternoon naps.  We dozed off in our easy chairs and never got anything done, but we're done with that now.  Coffee will keep us through the afternoon, past the evening, and into the dark hours of night.  Coffee will cradle us in our manic dreams of eternal splendor, will guide us to space and beyond, past the stars and into infinity, till we join the frenzied dance of existence beyond the infinite.  The end to wretched leisure, the beginning of... EVERYTHING."

With glazed eyes, he slowly rose from his chair and raised his cup to all the others in that coffee shop; or perhaps it was to all coffee shops.  As he rose, his knee bumped the small, circular table and sent the chess set crashing to the floor and sent my own coffee right into his lap.  He stood, like a starry eyed prophet, laughing wildly, bathed in caffeinated glory and prophesying the wonders of his muse.

Strike three.

Moments later I was out of the coffee shop, away from the chess sets, cups, hipsters, and crazed prophets.  I spent the rest of that night studying in my room, looking at the stars.  Every now and again, I still think about that coffee shop, just nestled in the bosom of industrial paradise, guiding all its children to home and beyond.

I think it's a Starbucks now.

~Jared

Interesting Quote

"...activists who ignore the latest international fashion risk being outstripped by their more norm-savvy counterparts. Since international attention can make or break an organization, the ability to skillfully deploy rights language may be crucial to a group’s continued survival. the global diffusion of human rights, in other words, is produced both by Southern demands for justice and by northern supplies of funds, attention, and legitimacy." 

- Emilie M. Hafner-Burton and James Ron, "Seeing Double:  Human Rights Impact through Qualitative and Quantitative Eyes"