Shadows of Coffee

Tyler walks into the house knowing that it’s empty, but he yells out anyway. “Hello!” This is unprompted by any foreknowledge of anything out of place. He has a small headache, and even his voice was a touch annoying, making his current aloneness a comfort in the kitchen's gloom. He turns the blinds to let in the mid-morning light. 

He walks in carrying his coffee and coat shuddering at the slam of the door. His home is climate controlled and his wife, Araysh, always makes is warmer than he felt it should be but she did not want the baby to be cold. No matter how much he or their son, Abeo complained.

The cup in Tyler’s hand is hot and hurting his hand. 

No one answers back his hello, and he makes his way into the kitchen not just with a cup of coffee but a box that holds coffee beans that he has been wanting to try. 

The cup in his hand was a good cup of java. The coffee shop was a local one and took care of their creations of caffeine. Caffe Creations could fill his order of this bean from Africa but he had to speak to the owner, who emailed a friend, that knew a guy. Importing was expensive. The coffee never came, forgotten about, until day. Most African coffee is cheap to get in the states, but this was something new. A wild coffee bean from deep in the Congo. The owner would have wanted some for the store, his personal use, but that was not the case. Part of the allure was the curse. It the bean as brewed in every hemisphere some Egyptian god would blot out the sun. The perfect ending to an Alternate Reality Game he and Abeo played.

Tyler kicked off his shoes a habit since childhood, it’s better than tracking dirt all over the house. In the kitchen, he broke out his Laboratory of Wakefulness. It is just after nine. His current cup of coffee is still full.

Tyler grabbed the Gooseneck Kettle and filled her with fresh drinking water. Not tap water, never tap water. Tyler looks around just as he gets the kettle on the heat and sets a timer. Filters for the Chemex pour-over coffee maker sit in a napkin holder on the counter next to a roll of paper towels. The bean grinder should have been right next to them. The first thing that seemed out of place since he walked in. 

After pulling a filter it’s set aside on the counter. Going into the cabinet, he grabs a scale and a bowl. 

He is still holding his coat when he looks up and mistaking the missing bean grinder for a noise somewhere in the house. “Hey,” He says to the room, wincing at the spike of pain in his head. There might be additional pain with an answer, but there isn’t one. 

Tyler sets his bag down and his coat next to it. The coat falls to the tile but Tyler does not mind he needs that grinder and Araysh will pick it up later. The bag opens and he can smell the coffee through the bag and the paper-wrapped box they are in. Laying the box on the counter, he felt as if the coffee smell was in the entire room. An aroma that was sweet, smokey, that had notes of chocolate. 

Tyler opened brown unbranded paper but thought about what would come out when he did. The smell might never leave. Tyler’s wife was a coffee drinker. She was less of a coffee lover than Tyler. When she is pregnant, she can’t stand the smell of coffee. She would run to their room upstairs to light candles and burn sage. 

The smell of the coffee was just as important to Tyler as the taste. The tearing of the brown paper was loud in the quiet house. His family knows not to make a noise while he is brewing. The paper gave way to a wooden box. It was not. 

The paper covered a cardboard box that had thick sides and lined with bubble wrap. Stripping it away, he finds another box of wood and metal and a piece of paper with one word on it: APOPHIS.

The paper falls sliding under the fridge.

There is a small clasp of polished brass the box of dark oak. The shine of the box into his eyes sent daggers to his head. 

“Makes sense,” he thinks, this is a very elusive bean and they don’t advertise in a normal way. 

The brass accents on the box reminded him of the humidor his father passed on to him. Something else about the box he was not expecting. The large amulet on the lid seemed embedded in the wood. It was of a snake looking to eat an egg covered in spikes… or the sun.

Tyler reaches a hand toward the metal on top of the box. “It might move if I touch it”. To his surprise, it does. It turns, allowing the snake to eat the sun. 

He attempts to open the clasp and finds it won’t open. “A puzzle box?” He says, shaking his head, causing his headache to flare once again. Abeo would love this, and his wife wouldn’t be able to sleep until we opened the box with the solution found. 

A knocking noise from Abeo’s room cause Tyler to stop. “Who’s there?”

The house darkens, leaving Tyler to think vision had darkened. Silents came back from the house. The dark made the house a crypt for memories. Tylers pulse quickens and only relaxes when he looks at the box. With little light he sees the blood left on the amulet.

A soft whistle made him look up from the box. The kettle has steeped sooner than he expected. The little kettle’s tone was not a harsh one, but just a soft in the kitchen kind of sound. With his head now pounding and a puzzle box to deal with, his kettle won the world’s best in personality and charm. 

He reaches to take it from the stove and sees something move out of the corner of his eye. Since getting in, he came directly into the kitchen believing the house to be empty. The movement was small, but headed into the living room. 

“Firstborn? That you, Ab?” He says this to the room in front of him but does not move. Just stares that the wall that cuts the kitchen and the dining room from the living room and the opening to the stairway. Nothing happens. 

The clouds allow some late morning sun into the house. Tyler looks back into the cardboard box. There is a grinder for the beans that he can’t open.  

The top part of the bean grinder is made of cast iron. It’s a small metal bowl holding cylinders with teeth. The bowl has a handle made of Ivory. A second box inside that looks like the locked one that has not left his hand since he picked it up. 

Tyler sits the other pieces on the counter. He puts the larger wooden box that holds the coffee beans next to the grind holder. His hand keeps its grip on the box as his fingers rub the smooth sides. 

   He reaches across his body with his other hand to grab the very passable cup of joe he laid down when he walked in. He lifts it, stretching his neck. No smell comes from the cup. He sits it down, no longer looking at it. 

Reaching for the Chemex and filter, he got out earlier to make this more of a picture in his mind. There is a soft “beep” from the scale turning off. “When had it got turned on?” He thinks. The filter is not the counter where he believes he left it. This makes him stop and pick up the new puzzle box whose reward must be coffee. Tyler walks to the other side of the kitchen. 

“Where I dropped my coat, and left the filter on the table, right here.” He says this out loud and as if to confirm it his coat was on the chair and the filter was on the table. 

Tyler spins around, hurting his head to check the floor next to the counter. Nothing there, no coat. 

The clouds darken the room again as a shadow stands just by the door. My own shadow, he thought. There was no light source that might make this shadow. 

Tyler stood staring at the shadow near the door. It is bright outside, late morning, and this could come from any window. His hand aches as he is squeezing the box, arm grows heavy while watching the shadow. His arm shakes and he wants to put the box on the counter in front of him but if he takes his eyes from the shadow what might it do. 

The clouds darken the room again. The shadow remains in the gloom until the dark over takes it. Tyler’s eyes blur with tears that come down his cheeks as the sun floods the kitchen with light again. 

Turning the box over he finds a sun pattern and returns the other pieces. The grind holder is the head of a snake with an open mouth with a pitted circle in the center. He sets the box down on it and it fits snug on the snake boxes mouth. Tyler turns the amulet on top, causing the snake to digest the sun and grow larger with each body segment. 

As it goes, the top opens and the sides drop showing seams he missed. Beans pour into a top plate of the box. There is a click where the box stops turning and the box turns back on its own as if he loaded a spring. 

Tyler reaching in and grabbed the beans that are just enough to make one weak cup or half cup of coffee. “Grind them, just to try out the new appliance”. He took the new grinder, washed, dried and placed it on the box shaped like a snake’s head. He dropped in the beans and turned the ivory handle. 

As Tyler grinds in this old fashion way the light from outside fades to darkness ounce again. He puts the grinds in to a bowl and weighs waking the scale. 

Twenty-three point nine eight milligrams

Tyler reached without thinking to grab filter. Folds and places it on the Chemex. Tyler grabs the letter and wets the filter in a circle pattern. Pours that out and place the filter now with the grinds on the Chemex. It’s all sitting on the scale as he adds the hot water. 

The grounds bubble from the heat. A sight he loves. There are screaming faces and skulls in those bubbles. A shadow stands at the dinning table. Tyler turns to get the light switch and finds another shadow at the switch. He stops pouring, catching movement from the corner of his eye. He stops breathing as he sees four more shadows, seven in the in the room. Including his own. He has his first second thoughts about Apophis’ Brew. 

The sun fell ever faster as he completed his brew, night at nine am.

They stood around him as he held the Chemex after the final pour over. Tyler’s headache became ever more intense as he went to sent the Chemex down. Holding ready to pour out made him feel better. 

He pours into his favorite mug. That was still in the cabinet but is now on the counter waiting for him.

Tyler’s family passed over a year ago, car accident. The closest he has felt to them since the day is now. They stand here, waiting. Shadows gathering, pushing him to drink, a Harbinger of Darkness, the blackest brew he had ever seen.