Ground coffee…
Warm, calming and soothing. Its rich and heavy aroma that fills your lungs, pleasant and evoking.
Evoking the most beautiful memories of your life…
Her small figure emerging from the doorframe with a smile so big it reaches her ears… her eyes shining like the first rays of the sun… she walks in a hurry with her trippy feet, her hands holding a plate of cookies, just outta the oven.
I bend down knowing what was to come.
She runs the last few steps and falls on to my arms. The cookies spill around us, and she bursts in to a silly laugh. I pick up a cookie and take a bite before I ask who made them.
“Me!” She shouts proudly.
She specifies her mom didn’t help. My little liar.
I sit back on the couch and I pull her on to my lap. We happily share a cookie when she decides she needs to have some of my coffee. I warn her she wouldn’t like it, but she chooses to check it herself as she takes a big sip. I watch in awe as her small lips morph into few funny shapes.
“It’s bittwerr” she mumbles as she tries to wipe away the flavor. I can’t help but laugh at her dramatic little expressions.
“Make it sweet!” she shouts a second before she grabs a handful of sugar cubes with her tiny bare fingers, and tosses them mercilessly in to my black coffee.
“Daddy drink it! Drink it!” the princess demands.
I follow as order, I dare not disobey. I hesitantly drink her “now good” coffee.
It’s too sweet you could call it honey.
But-
But now…
Why won’t my coffee get sweeter like that? When I desperately want it to be sweet...
Why is it bitter?
Two, three, five spoons ... bitter.
Seven, nine, ten… still bitter.
It should get sweeter. Shouldn’t it?
Even after I added the twelfth spoon of sugar… why is my coffee still so bitter?
Now where did this salt come from… why do I taste salt?
Where… where’s the other jar of sugar?
My coffee needs more sweetness to be the perfect warm, soothing coffee…with aroma that fills your lungs, pleasant and evoking.
Just a little more sugar, and it’ll be okay….
Right?
What if it's just the magic of her little hands?
What do I do now?
Evoking the most beautiful memories of your life...
What do I do now that's she's no more?
What...
Evoking the most painful memories in your life.
Oh... This cursed… ground coffee.
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1st Sept 2022
