Undercover

How to order coffee

I want my coffee black like my soul. I always make sure to ask for black coffee in advance when I order it at a cafe. The girl behind the counter looks back at me from behind her turtle shell rims and asks, “Would you like cream with that?” I think I’ll have to cut out my tongue and become mute.

October is a nice time of year because the cold forces people to stay home. Don’t talk to me. I’m busy making coffee. Bad coffee. I’m busy making more bad coffee. I own a french press and a tub of cheap coffee grounds for a reason.

When I spoon at the grounds in my kitchen, I notice all the orange and red stains caked on to my vinyl counter. I should really get around to cleaning the kitchen. The cat on top of the fridge is as black as my black coffee.

I’m not sure what this internal shift is every year, but it’s as if my doppelganger has dragged its ass out of the sewer, hung my original self in the closet with my T-shirts, and proceeds to live out my life while I just hangout. He uses his reptilian brain and has figured out how to spit poison. No different than myself. Just an enlightened being.

While I drink my coffee and chew on the dark black grounds, I want to watch Suspiria and listen to black metal. The caffeine stimulates me and I write philosophical tracts and turn the heat up high in my apartment so that I stay indoors. It’s October. My coffee is blacker still when I roll my eyes in class or pass someone on the road. I can feel the sediment like some sort of residue on my tongue. Yum.

Perhaps there has always been a reptile inside me, lurking, waiting, digging holes around the roots of my spine. A little lizard home in the back of my brain. He slides out through the cracks in my face extimating himself the people around me. I mean him. Him or me.

The coffee is bitter and most people won’t admit to drinking it but it’s not as uncommon as you might think.