Patchwork Souls

Luke Hannah, 24

The barista handed me my cup and smiled, watching my nervous foot strike the floor repeatedly. Tap-tap-tap. "Heading somewhere?"

"Yes. I am late to work." I anxiously handed her my five dollar-bill, "Keep the change." The bus at the bus stop wanted to go. It had a long day ahead of it. We had one thing in common; we both wanted to be on time. My feet carried me out the door. The bus' doors started to close, and the driver was staring out at the road of ahead of him, sighing. I ran out to the bus stop, cup held high in front of me. It was a spectacle a flag-waver might of put on.

I caught the door with my foot, "Good morning, sir. Room for one more?" He checked his bus mirror and smirked. When I climbed the stairs, I could see it too. The bus was full to the brim. It had eaten too much at this stop and was prepared to purge out the extras at the next. I watched my coffee, it became a "attempting not to spill it" game. The bus groaned under its weight until the next stop, and happily hummed along until mine.

Finally, we lurched to my stop. The coffee was gone, and the game long since faded. I threw it out in the trash bin next to the stop.

Bzz-zz. Bzz-zz. The phone in my coat pocket urged me to answer it. It was my boss. I was running late. My thumb swept over the screen in answering motion. "Hello?" A shrill woman's voice scolded me over the phone. She then went on to talk about how, without me, the company would collapse if I continued to show up late. I blushed sheepishly--I was her assistant.

Assistant - to do everything that the person you're assisting doesn't want to do.

"I'm sorry." I repeated to the other side of the line. Sorry never seemed to work with this woman. She continued to screech into the microphone.

Just a few of the things Luke wanted to say to her:

What else do you expect me to do?

You insensitive woman.

I would rather die than to continue to work for you.

And, had anyone ever told you that your breath smells like ass?

Number three was ironic. Irony plays such a large role in death.

It's sort of hilarious. That was also irony,

in the rare case that you were keeping score.

The leftover coffee taste was permanently burned into my mouth. After so many cups, you start to taste the coffee no matter where you go and what you eat. It's seared into your tastebuds. I had drunk so many cups of coffee over the past ten years of my life that I could never ever get the taste out. After a while, the addiction grew stronger. It started to take more cups per day to make it through my day without falling asleep. In eleventh grade, my coffee cup number went up to six cups a day. Sometime after that, I was able to work it down to two cups. With my new job, it jumped to three. It's a whole lot of numbers, but it made sense to me after my second cup of coffee.

My mother used to get mad at me in high school for my coffee addiction. She had a drinking addiction, and I often pointed it out to her that mine wasn't as bad as hers. She'd refuse me coffee on those days. My stomach would ache in waves, and I'd imagine it felt similar to period cramps. MY head would spin, aching and screaming at me to just find some dan coffee. I'd get high levels of anxiety until I had my first sip of coffee, but then everything would calm down and I'd feel okay again. I wouldn't eat until dinner on coffee days because the coffee just filled me up. My friends called me crazy. If they drank coffee, they'd need to eat with it or it'd make them sick.

I started to crave coffee again. It was just then as I was staring at my converse streaking the black top that I heard the car horn. I didn't have the time to get out of the way.