Morning Fix

An apocalyptic tale

There was no comfort from the window seat which peered out onto a static Pantone 14-4318 blue sky. Nervous sweat dripped continuously through my ill-fitted nun’s habit. The heavy rosary around my neck seemed to continue to increase its weight as I gazed though the thick glass window fit for a mouse. Columbian prisons are notoriously violent, cramped, and crawling with cockroaches the size of child’s hand. Soaked with sweat, I was glad I wouldn’t be body-packing. 15 kilos would be neatly placed in the lining of my suitcase and sealed with factory precision. It was also important to secure the illegal cargo properly because the smell was so easily identifiable. One tear and the drug detection dogs would ensure my trip home would be over.

Black market coffee exceeds American demand for cocaine, heroin and hash combined. Coffee cartels now controlled the a vast amount of wealth in Columbia, Brazil, and Ethiopia. The evangelical right in power proclaimed that highly caffeinated substances drastically reduced the fertility rate of Americans and  the evil coffee bean polluted our bodies with sin. After their proclamation, anything coffee related was swiftly banned though out the U.S.. Only the oldest generation of Americans could remember a time when coffee was openly served in households, shops & airplanes.

On the street, coffee fiends ask for  C, mud, clay, devil’s rush, morning fix, daily dust, java rush, the perk, perca, eye poppers, black water, and the list goes on and on. Last week an American coffee mule was slapped with a 25-year minimum, mandatory sentence for attempting to smuggle 150 kilos across US borders. 

The international flight’s airline stewardess approached with an unsteady drink cart. As her tiny, ivory hands reached for a paper cup she inquired “Would you like a ginger ale, Sister? An orange juice or water perhaps?” With a mouse-eye view of her I meekly requested sad, iced water, Pantone 00-0001, which offered no cooling effect.

A change of scenery was desperately needed. Inside the locked lavatory I stood in front of the mirror as a ridiculous, knock-off, penguin getup stared right back at me. The plain, wooden, crucifix I swiped at the dollar store looked like stylish flare against all the plain and shapeless black. Eyes closed the mirror melted away and my kitchen window opened up onto a Pantone 19-4052 morning sky and my gorgeous siphon coffee brewer was propped by my side. Often the chemical effects of a drug are not as addictive as the drug preparation ritual. The water vapors elegantly pull themselves from the boiling water and pirouetted all around me. The layered notes of toffee, grapefruit and cherry billowed up and enchanted my nostrils as soon as the fine powder slipped in. The silky and strong Pantone 4526c took its time as it slinked down into my thick, deep walls of my mug. The deep and tanned body shimmered, swirled and quivered as it took its time to settle. I raised the quick fix to my thirsty lips…

A large thump of the airplane’s cabin jolted me back into a cramped, two-bit, flying bathroom. Starbucks and cozy indie coffee shops were all wiped away from the American pop-culture landscape. Now cheap Folgers coffee even has a sense of myth and nostalgia surrounding it. Everyone marvels at the fact that Folgers and Starbucks was once advertised brazenly on billboards, magazines, commercials and utilized for product placement in blockbuster movies. Now 8 ounces of freeze dried Folgers-crap-in-can is worth blinding amounts of money.

Crammed back into my window seat I once again stared out into the static blue. This time it was Pantone 14-4320. The intercom garbled out “Please return your seat backs to their full upright and locked position and prepare for landing.” The plane slowly descended away from the blanket of Pantone 14-4320 as my heart rate ascended to uncountable beats per second. I clutched the rosary against my chest and prayed, “Please let me have my fucking coffee. Hail Satan.”

The plane pulled to a full stop and I unsteadily raised to my feet. I yanked away my carry-on bag from the clutches of the overhead bin and thought, in less than a week I will have a good chunk of change and copious amounts of my morning fix at my finger tips or I just might have a one-way ticket to a cramped and squalled Columbian prison while I stare out of the bars onto a Pantone 17-4412 grey sky for about 25 years.