Oh Coffee Where Have You Gone?

This was it. In his hands, he held something more valuable than any jewels or money in the country. It was something that was being searched for by men and women alike. Everyone who had ever had a sip of it was coveting for what he held in his hands right now. Wrapped in this brown paper with a string neatly tied around it was the thing that would make him a savior to a country feigned by sluggish mornings, irritability and crankiness. In his hands, he held the ingredients and recipe needed to make one, hot, delicious cup of coffee

It had been decades since coffee had been taken away from the public. Nobody even knew why. There were rumors ranging from government conspiracies to we ran out of enough ingredients for everyone so now nobody gets to have any. Anything that had to do with coffee was stripped away from the internet, books and even parts in television or movies that referenced making coffee were censored. For a while there were secret cafe’s equivalent to that of a speakeasy during the prohibition era.

However, it was almost unavoidable that greed would come into play by those running these secret cafes. What started happening at first was their prices started to rise as more and more people started coming in. And they weren’t just rising to cover the costs of running, but they rose because they saw how many people were willing to pay such high amounts for coffee and a pastry. As people started choosing their “home cafe” this led to rivalries among owners.

Soon there were rivalries that were so intense it caused the businesses to suffer. People were going out and destroying other cafes or calling attention to one in hopes of getting them caught by police. Even if they weren’t caught the police sniffing around caused the owner to quiet down business and sometimes even pause for weeks at a time. Once all of that started happening it was hard for anyone to stay open. The suffering of the secret cafes lead to the loss of coffee for everyone.

Now was the time to see if the stories had been true. Even some of the ingredients for coffee were stripped away from the people and some ingredients that were still sold were monitored to make sure people weren’t buying an amount that was deemed “suspicious”. But the murmurs and the whispers had gotten to Alex and he had been on this coffee quest for months. He had traveled far and wide to try to get what he held in his hands now. The whispers and murmurs weren’t just talk, they were true.

He could almost taste the coffee already. He hadn’t had coffee since he was in college so many years ago. And here he stood today, with something that could not only put an end to the coffee ban, but bring everyone together. One thing everyone in the country had very much agreed on was that coffee needed to come back. He was ready to be the one to bring it back to everyone.

There he sat, outside the cave on one of the many mountains he had ventured through on his journey. With unsteady hands he carefully unwrapped the string that tied the brown paper around the package and put it in his inside pocket. He ripped the paper off the package and opened the box. What he saw inside made his heart catch in his chest. He dropped the package and dropped to the floor.

Lying next to him were two mugs that had been taped to the base of the package. And inside one of those mugs, a note. He reached for the note and his eyes glazed over it. What he saw at the bottom of the note is what caused him to never return back to his town again. It read “haha try again”.