Coffee

Jacqueline’s morning coffee tasted bitter—too little cream. She had been told to cut back, to try taking it black, to lower her sugar intake. You can handle it, she told herself. Out the window, she watched her neighbor try and fail to start his motorcycle, the engine sputtering before a cough of black smoke filled the air.

He came back to her mind; how pitiful he was in her eyes. It had been rude to ignore him, to step back. The look in his eyes at dinner—desperate, pupils dilating at the plates of food—combined with the ravenous way he swallowed the plate diminished his virtues. A gnawing grew in her stomach, the bitter coffee unsettling her. She picked up her phone and began to compose a message of remorse.

No. 128