Spider Dreams: Chapter 17 "Bad Coffee"

“Where the hell is our coffee?” I demanded.

“What coffees?” He asked with confused forehead wrinkles.

“The one we ordered five minutes ago from the waitress.”

“What waitress?” Now his lips were puckered.

“What waitress? The cute little cheerleader ponytail girl with the short red plaid skirt. That waitress. The one who came over here and asked us what we wanted to drink.”

“Well bud. I’m sorry to say, I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about. There never was, nor will there ever be a waitress of any type in this joint.” He pointed down the row of tarnishing diner tabletops. “Ya got to get off your ass and get service yourself here. See the creamer and the coffee?”

I saw the bar top with a glass of milk, tiny beads of water collecting along its side. A tall hipster bearded twenty something male gently, with pinky finger erect, stirring a white packet of sugar into his coffee. He is lost; deep in the perplexing angst-filled millennial daydreaming of his significant existence. The universe owes him some sweetness. He coughs on the back of his sleeve, tossing the thin brown plastic straw in the wastebasket without a thought to how many times he has done this, almost every day, as part of his routine. How many straws he has added to the landscape of the planet, floating across oceans, breaking down into tiny pieces, stuck in the bellies of fish and bird. The lives his consumption has consumed.

“Maybe you’re talking about Tiffany. She just came over here a sec ago looking for some dope. She never said anything about coffee though. You alright man?”

“Tiffany? Who the hell is Tiffany?” Fluorescent lights overhead blinked in the empty labyrinth of my mind. I tried to open my eyes. Hipster boy, in his extra tight sweatshop manufactured blue jeans exited the building. I’d like to punch that tweed fuck in the nose and cut off his man bun. But hey! I probably shop for my pants at the same place. Might as well go home and punch myself in the mirror. I’d be just as productive.

“That chick.” He pointed to a table on the other side of the room into the smoking section. “The Goth looking girl. With the black spikes around her neck. See?”

“Oh, her.” Bright false lights flickered, like staring up at the dental office. “She doesn’t look like the cheerleading type.”

“Shit no. Tiffany, she’ll black eye any cheerleading bitch that crosses her path.”

“Damn.”

“Damn right. I’ll go get us a couple coffees. You sit back and try to get the world in perspective. Ok?”

“Cool. Thanks man.”

I sat back letting the environment melt around me. Soft chatter of conversation like an invisible ocean lapping on eardrums. Window shades closed. Mid afternoon looked the same as 2am, if it weren’t for the change in clientele. Sunday brunch, the after church free-from-sin glutton themselves on the worst Midwestern all you can eat buffet: bleach yellow scrambled eggs, a thick meniscus crust on one side of the gravy, everyone scooping underneath for the goopy juices to top their biscuits. A slopping heap of nitrate bacon and factory farmed slaughtered pig parts dripping in the sweet sugary dewiness of syrup. It’s the flavor of the Heartland, faces filling the gaping orifices feeding off the dead, the dead already, feeding off the living, another form of zombie. Drooling grease down their triple chins trickling onto their bellies. A burp from the crowd and horde goes wild piling heap after heap onto pink plastic plates.

The edges around my head curved towards an event horizon letting the darkness envelop me in a comfortable damp womb. My safe place, in sanctuary, in a safe place. I crawled back into my mind laid out like strung up rows of beef carcasses. My skin fused to the pleather plastic café booth. Each finger protruded deep into the surface and I pulled them out dripping in the thick black slick like oil. Stuck to the tar growing all around me, stretching, pulling, oozing down the walls. Claustrophobia like a rubber-gloved hand gripped my throat. The room squeezed inward to a narrowing point and bounced back out. Silence followed. All around I saw mouths move but no sound. Fat fingered hands shoveled forkful after forkful of slippery gravy soaked intestines.

Frank Sinatra came on over the tiny crackling speakers in the ceiling between the yellowing square panels.

“What to be is it in me? The flavors of life flower pollen see? New guava, honey and flies, or toasted almond, French roast surprise?”

My friend returned with the coffees. “You take cream right?”

“Yeah, a pinch, I guess. I think.”

“That’s what I thought.”

He set the cup down in front of me. A hornet crawled around the rim of my cup. The little horned robot took to flight landing on the soggy French toast at the next table. Stuck in a pool of syrup, the man unaware scooped the hornet in with his next bite.

“I think I need the restroom.” I said. Or at least I thought I said.

His skin sagged on the sharp bone structure underneath. It began dripping, flesh melting like wax, eye sockets widening into deep black bleeding holes. A grin grew consuming his whole head. Black flames lifted from the top of his head, flowing like strands of evil grass in the wind.

"You alright man?"

"YeAh, yEah, HAveN't slePPt iN a wHILe. THat'Z AlL."

Twitches contorted my limbs. A voice from the empty voice within spoke, “The poison of the honey bee will lead to your jealousy. As are the Prince’s robes the Beggar’s rags.” The words came scattered like stretched syllables as if Sinatra spoke them backwards. Then clearer it became distinct and I could recognize the voice.

“Told with bad intent, the truth is more harmful than a lie that wasn't meant.”

I blinked, feeling the dry un-oiled hinge grind at the base of my spine. Smoke filled the room. He still stood there. After setting down his coffee. He reached into his mouth with both hands and opened his cheeks, pulling wider and wider until stretching his lips over his entire head. His outer skin fell with a heavy smack to the dusty floor.

“If it is right, then it is so, for you to feel bliss and woe.” A little blue-scaled creature stood in the remnants of his body. Nobody in the restaurant skipped a beat in their eating habits. The walls melted away to old roof trusses and plywood. Black syrup oozed onto the floor from tables and plates. The liquid crept to my feet. I tried to lift them but they were stuck, glued. Then the black turned to old floorboards. I began recognizing the space. The attic.

I fell to the ground and began vomiting a green. The creature continued chanting, no longer singing in Frank Sinatra’s voice. “In this world you think you safely go, with all the things you think you rightly know.”

A second voice spoke from behind me. “Your soul is in clothing un-divine, a grief of milk and silk will run throughout the world like wine.”

The third voice I recognized. “For this image every creature will come to understand, for all the tears and blood will consume this spoiled land.” The greckon stepped from the shadows of the rafters and wrapped its three sharp fingers around my face. Its warm sour breath on my face. Foam around the corners of its lips. It gripped the medallion at my neck with its other claw.

“This world is a curtain of illusion. Housing everyone in transparent confusion. Lured and tantalized in all the delight, even the most innocent lose the purest sight.”

Thanks for visiting.

Copyright © 2018, Charles Denton
All rights reserved

Previous Chapters:

1: https://steemit.com/fiction/@ghostfish/spider-dreams-chapter-one

2: https://steemit.com/fiction/@ghostfish/spider-dreams-chapter-two

3 & 4: https://steemit.com/fiction/@ghostfish/spider-dreams-chapter-three-and-four

5: https://steemit.com/fiction/@ghostfish/spider-dreams-chapter-5

6: https://steemit.com/fiction/@ghostfish/spider-dreams-chapter-6-the-voice-inside-the-mind

7: https://steemit.com/steemit/@ghostfish/spider-dreams-chapter-7-coble-stone-ruins

8 & 9: https://steemit.com/steem/@ghostfish/spider-dreams-chapter-8-and-9

10: https://steemit.com/fiction/@ghostfish/spider-dreams-chapter-10-fish-s-monologue

11 & 12: https://steemit.com/story/@ghostfish/spider-dreams

13: https://steemit.com/story/@ghostfish/spider-dreams-chapter-13-attic-revisit

14: https://steemit.com/story/@ghostfish/spider-dreams-chapter-14-frailty

15: https://steemit.com/story/@ghostfish/spider-dreams-chapter-15-day-job

16: https://steemit.com/story/@ghostfish/spider-dreams-chapter-16-family