The Cafe Suite: Doctors Order

The Cafe Suite

Doctors Order

Spit, stained with lies, I am told to lean closer to the microphone.
The smell of instant, cheap made coffee, the sight of a pursed lip. The feel of hungry ears. I retreat.
My arm works allegro with each pound of the pestle, and with each pound I add, imagination blooms; mushrooms. I move a plate closer, empty my work  and I have complete; bacon, eggs, tomato and mushrooms; shrooms. Ostensibly, a healthy breakfast.
My kitchen. My laboratory. Low-light, organic. Dark. Conducive to my line of work.
How long has this been going on for?
The room, dark, smell of coffee, like the kitchen of a cheap drunk. The constable leans forward, enters my space trying to hear my thoughts.
Nothing to hear except Have you ever experimented with LSD? My response.
LSD please, extra hot! I nod, no need to write the order down, I’m on auto pilot. My note pad returns to my pocket. My fingers, fingering in the dark find a pill; small and deceptively simple to make. I put it back. For now. Soy Decafe Late , LSD is on the menu.
Brewed, I slip the pill into the drink. Then stirred now mashed. No sense of art in my craft at all. All business. I serve hot. The response is my artistry; performance art.
I watch as the drink is, as my thoughts are, consumed.
She sits with the cup. Moves it under her nose and breathes in; deep. She knows it’s good coffee; the best she has ever had. Immediately she relaxes. Teeth stop grinding. Legs stop moving. She relaxes. Eyes widen, out of the crevasses made from squinting. She’s relaxed.
I watch the other couple, Bacon, eggs and ‘shrooms. They laugh, unaware of my assistance in their nascent euphoria, not the accidental spilling of their coffee. I laugh. One grunt. Not at them, but at the spilt, bitter coffee. A waste.
Cups are hung in a line. Coffee beans are pilled to the side; ease of access. Spoons; shine, silver.
I watch the lady some more. I like her. Nice glasses and shiny fingers. Relaxed; rendered insouciant. A convoluted mind now a simple device; spoon like; made to be stirred.
There is a line now. People ordering, or waiting to do so. Long thin line; caucasian. Man from the line helps himself to a coke. There’s a smell in the air, hanging, subtly but definitely there. I see several of my customers breathe in through their noses. I watch; one breath. No one notices the smell except me. I breathe in through my nose and I can smell cheap coffee again. Cheap coffee, metallic finish and lies.
I hold the metal jug as I froth milk for coffees; just regular ones. It wasn’t just at night I performed my secret ministry, it was any time of day. But, only for the special ones. With one swift hand gesture I place a white pillow under my tongue. No one notices; the art of deception. It’s soft and I can relax. I relax.
Lights aren’t as harsh, little noise, my world. My world. Coffee, cups, small movements from otherwise still and satisfied customers, dance like. My world. I’m in charge.
A few minutes later in a whirl wind of shapes, colours and passing faces, man with coke says something. Something else and then something about going with him and her, his partner; a constable? For a rest? Something, something and then something again.
Don’t push! Something else.
Their world.
As I lean closer, I tell her only this. It’s probably not true. I always lie.
Lie. I lie. Lie.
My world.