Nephilim

4 - Insipid Coffee

I knew she was having a shitty day. I knew this because every time the voices of her supervisor, who was somewhere in the kitchen, and the chef, I presume, raised all the way through the roof, her smile widened and grew tighter. I glanced at her nametag, which read 'Zoya' and asked for a double espresso. She collected the dough, handed me a bill and went off to fetch my espresso. It was ready in about 3 minutes. I was the only customer they had, for which, I suppose, she was grateful. Clearly the argument going on in the kitchen was fraying her nerves.

I seated myself at one of the cheap tables and sipped the insipid coffee. "I see you're having a wonderful day," I commented dryly.

I took some cheap satisfaction at the fact that the smile on her face faded. Somewhere I was almost sorry to see the smile go. It had made her look almost pretty. She rolled her eyes and replied, "Clearly." I was pretty positive that she was violating the rules of the place as she grabbed a mug of coffee herself and took a seat opposite me.

"So what's your excuse?" she asked. She probably meant what was my excuse to drink the crappy coffee they were so famous for.

"A skimmed milk decaf from Starbucks is far above my pay grade," I replied.

"I am surprised you even have one," she replied.

Now, I didn't exactly look like someone who would star in movies, but as I have stated before, I take pride in being neat and presentable. I didn't exactly look like a homeless bugger. And up until about last week, I did have a job. Sort of.

"Thanks," I replied.

We fell into an awkward silence as we continued sipping our respective drinks. I wondered what would happen if the manager happened to come along and see her this way. Would he fire her? Considering he wasn't in the best of moods today, that looked like a possibility. But I didn't have to worry about it for too long as she got up a few minutes later and returned to the cash counter. After finishing my coffee, I returned the cup to the counter, bid her goodbye and walked out.

It was another day. Life was a series of shit days with the good ones interspersed here and there. I suppose whoever governed all the lives believed that we would revolt if there were no good days at all, which is why we are provided with few. And as humans, we weren't just glad about that. Oh no, we were grateful and then eventually got used to that kind of treatment. No one is too pretty or too young or too smart to cheat life or death, for that matter.

I had an appointment with yet another charlatan who could tell me something, anything about the forces I had encountered. As I made my way to the establishment, I thought of Zoya. It had been a strange encounter. I walked inside and pushed down the mutiny that was taking place in both, my stomach and my lungs, as I took in the overpowering smell of the incense. My eyes began to water with the amount of smoke around. Zoya, I remembered, had dried up lips, with tiny marks around them. She smoked, for sure. I saw the guru seated, as usual, on an assortment of patchwork cushions, gesturing with his long, black, ornament clad hands that I should take a seat. I thought about how Zoya's cap was a bit bulgy, as if the volume of her dark hair was too much for it.

I repeated the same things to this fellow. I want to speak to God, I said. He gave me an answer, which is along the lines of the many I had received before. Can't happen, he said. I mentioned angels, devils, ghosts, banshees, and vampires. No result. I thought about the tiny, easy-to-miss bruises on Zoya's knuckles. As if she had been fighting someone off. I then mentioned The Erudite Church. I was expecting the fellow to throw me out, just like the others had. But this one gave a small, sly smile. He asked me to follow him to another room.

This room, to my astonishment, looked like a normal person's room. The guru was the only odd thing about the room. It had a little pantry off the side, complete with a sink, a tiny refrigerator, a small stove and a stand to keep utensils. A shelf full of dusty, leather bound books took up the other end of the room. You couldn't exactly make out the titles, as there were none. To the side was a small plastic table with four plastic chairs around it. I sat on one as the man, whose name I learned was Vishwa, walked to the shelves and pulled out a dusty old volume. He placed it on the table, opened to a page in the middle of the book, turned it around so that the book faced me and pointed to a particular paragraph.