Flash Fiction

noon/coffee

Noon. 

I wake up and check the neon green alarm clock that flashes next to my bed only right now it isn't flashing. 

It's noon. 

I take a deep breath in of the dense atmosphere that surrounds me, the incense aroma of cigarette smoke and a city that never sleeps. 

I suppose I should've slept with my window closed, but time seems to be fading in and out as of late and I don't even remember opening it. 

I can hear car horns, beeping crosswalks, cooing pigeons, and the bustle of angry street vendors outside. 

They welcome my ears into a new day. 

Another fucking day. 

My body somehow manages to pull itself out of bed and start a cup of coffee. 

The deep vanta black drips into my coffee pot, creating a calming lull like a babbling brook in the wilderness. 

My small, one-bedroom apartment in the city was sort of a wilderness. 

Strange creatures outside, the buzzing of busy bees, the concrete jungle. 

If new york is a jungle, I'm a fucking ant. 

Although I think ants are renowned for being particularly hard workers, which I can't necessarily identify with. 

I tend to not really give a fuck about anything, because the more fucks i give, the more upset i get, and the more weed i have to smoke, and the more cash i blow through, which stresses me out and starts the whole cycle over again. 

My scolding hot, vanta black cup of coffee is the only thing that can clear my mind this early in the morning. 

Noon, that is. 

The thing about waking up at noon every day is that you feel like you've missed something. 

Some people start their days at 6am, watch the sunrise, get their workout in, shower, go to work, and have had lunch by then. 

But me?

I just rolled out of bed and started a pathetic cup of coffee. 

Sometimes I feel like my world moves slower than the world that everyone else lives in. 

Everybody seems to have so much on their plate, complaining that time flies by, saying they wish they "had more time", insisting there's "no time to waste."

I feel like my entire life is an ode to the fact that there is plenty of time to waste. 

Maybe everyone else is just living in the fast lane. 

While my life is more of a drip. 

Drip. 

Drip. 

As the last drip of coffee sails down my throat, I blink my eyes and glance at the neon alarm clock that beckons my name. 

12:01.