Cup of Sleep

Caramel Shot To The Heart

Code one: If you are caught sleeping at your desk, if survived can be fined at minimum half a day wage with a minimum amount being forty-five sbnuoq per infraction.

The Benny Beans mascot loomed over the town like the eldritch abominations of old, city-sized eyes that watched all, heard all, and knew all. They saw as the worker in cubicle C27 typed away at a computer in the heart attack division of the Incident report room. Elizabeth's last cup of coffee was thirteen minutes and seven seconds ago and she was already craving another.

"One minute and fifty-three seconds till maxi boost." She hit the side of the machine with shaky hands and screamed

"I want it now, I need it." she reached for her previous cup, drank the remaining drop and went back to work, typing slower and slower.

Name: Mary Shoulder

Gender: Gender Neutral

Age: 34

Cause of death: Power outage caused the coffee machine to shut off.

Elizabeth glanced over at the timer on top of her machine and saw she only had to wait thirty seconds for her next cup, she could already taste it.

"No, no no!" she heard from the booth next to her, followed by the repetitive sound of flesh and bone slamming against metal "I can't be broken, it just can't!" her machine produced a warm styrofoam cup full of coffee which she downed in a single gulp, ignoring the burning pain as the timer on the machine reset.

"Can you keep it down Alen." a voice from the other side of the room said, "some of us are actually trying to work." The sound of his body slamming on the ground was masked by the sound of hundreds of people typing, the names and ages of people who died of too much coffee. The loud and repetitive tapping masked the death of someone who died because they didn't drink enough coffee.

"Alen," Elizabeth said "did you get my order by mistake? I don't normally have caramel in mine," he said nothing. "If you don't say anything I'm just gonna keep it, might even change my order." yet more time passed with no reply causing Elizabeth to stand "If you ignore me one more time I will take a baseball bat to your machine so help me benny." she walked to his booth and looked on the ground, turning pale and she saw his face, the veins in his forehead a bright blue in contrast to his pale skin.

"Why hasn't Alen replied to my email?" The woman in the booth to the right of Alen asked, trying to see over the cubicle wall but only making her forehead visible, her shortly cut ginger hair unbrushed for many days. "I'm trying to confirm a shipment of printer paper but he hasn't hasn't replied." her forehead disappeared behind the wall and reappeared a few seconds later with the rest of the face, smooth skin, green eyes, red lips and rosy red cheeks all ruined by eyes so tired that her bags had their own bags.

"I don't know for sure but I think it's a code two thirty-four." She picked up his cup and took a sip, spitting out its contents the moment they touched her tongue.

"What's a two thirty-five? Is that when the machine makes decaf instead of caffeinated." Elizabeth reached over the wall and showed the woman what was in the cup

"No, a two thirty-five and when it glitches and dispenses only toilet juice." She placed the cup on Alen's desk and walked around to the other cubicle, reading her name tag, Jane.

"Then what is the code for Decaf?" She sat back at her desk and removed the codebook, scanning the index for decaf, not finding it.

"Decaf is four five three one six." she walked to the body and grabbed its arms, dragging it to the end of the room and opened the window, the force of the wind blowing a piece of paper into her face, an advertisement for a The first and only sleep plus pod. She looked out the wind and saw it, a coffee cup made the second tallest structure in the world look like a pimple on the face of the earth, eyes that followed her every step despite actually remaining still. It had a face, large brown patched lips and buck teeth exaggerated to the point of parody. "Look out below!" She kicked the corpse out of the window, watching as it hit the edge of balconies before resting on top of the pile at the bottom so tall that one could, in theory, survive jumping out of the building. The pa system shrieked to life and the voice of her boss silenced everyone.