Cuban Coffee Music

I hate business meetings, but who likes them really?  As the government official I have to attend them and my job is to de-escalate,  not escalate in this scenario.  Unless they harm in my physical body in which case I carry a fire arm and am trying to use it.  

    Go in with smiles on our faces as usual, to deescalate.   Maybe it’ll work and maybe it won’t.   Nobody ever died from a smile though.   But as we go in, we hear this weird buzzing sound.  Difficult to describe.  Kind of high pitched consistent at times but inconsistent at times too one long buzz and then it sounds like a Morse code in another language.    We talk about how Patel Castro is not helping the people with Cuba and us as Americans are not happy with them either and we explain why.   The majority of the people are in third world conditions and nothing is modernized.  People don’t want this and they protest because they don’t want this and then things to go against the UDHR have happened, including death.  We insisted that it stops.  The buzz noises continue.   And then I start feeling it:   asleep, pain in the middle of my brain.  A small piece like the Candie use in my forehead when a headache is about to start.  I look into carry-on bag and there are no painkillers so I smile and keep talking about the importance of giving the people voice.   America is not going to give Cuba any money, including humanitarian money until Castro is impeached or steps down.  

      I know Castro won’t step down, but this is what we were told to say by our supervisors.  Again the buzzing.   The offer each one of the diplomats Cuban coffee, which is delicious.  We have the insurance tasted first to make sure it isn’t poison and after half an hour, the in terms are fine. We enjoy warm coffee and it’s delicious.   The people are presenting Castro are hardheaded though just like last time.  This is as usual a waste of United States tax dollars, but who knows maybe this time will be able to convince them that capitalism is advantageous for everyone instead of dictatorship and communist or we won’t.  

    The bus contains I asked the other people there and it turns out the majority of the Americans have headaches too   what’s going on?   I look at one of the Cuban representatives and they each have. Orange earplugs.   Why do they offer us coffee instead of earplugs or only coffee and not earplugs?   Weird do I need to evacuate?  Is bioterrorism happening?  Recall our supervisor who tells us it’s probably just something in the water there.  We didn’t use filtered water for the coffee or ask for filtered water to be used but it’s still good coffee.   The buzzing continues and it is not giving us a buzz.  Headaches are expanding. What the hell is going on?  My must be imagining things.  You’re imagining things.  There’s no way a sound could enter our brains and hurt us.  If it did, we all would have been dead years ago from the shit our kids played at full volume.  

      Besides, these people don’t have advanced technology.   There’s no way.  These people don’t have the technology to build new infrastructure, so how would they be able to . . . ?  Where did they get ear plugs then and why this noise and where the fuck is it coming from?   They don’t have TVs, projectors, or anything.   They’re writing with pen and paper.  Old school. Just like last year and the year before.  So they couldn’t have the technology to, they couldn’t.  Think logically.  I pinch myself and feel it, so I’m not dreaming and I’m not high, unless they slipped a Mickey in all of our coffees, but I don’t feel tired or like I’m about to faint.  I just have a splitting headache.   Wonder if they sell Tylenol in this shit hole?   So, I do what any American idiot would do in this situation:   I ask the Cubans if they have any and believe or not they do.   They have Aspirin.  Each American pops a pill or two with the water the Cubans gave everyone.  Why did the Cubans pack aspirin?   Was that their plight?   To give us poisonous pills?    What’s going on?   The strange noise continues.  The headaches are expanding Iije balloons   Feels like our heads are going to explode.  “ How do you fit a full sized elephant into a Safeway bag?   Take the S out of Safe and the F out of Way”.  Think about it.  The only thing scarier than finding out you have an illness is having a list and no one being able to figure out what the hell it is all of our heads hurt. It feels like we’re about to die maybe because we are, but why would the Cubans want to kill us when they want money from us?   Do they want money from us or do they want to have their own Sorens state free of democracy and capitalism?   What do they want?

   You really want us to stop coming here they told us they want us to stop coming here and they want state sovereignty, but they also want money from us like we give money to other nations like Israel. But you can’t have it both ways and this wouldn’t give them money anyway I mean they could threaten to kill more Americans, but that would just cause them to be at war with America and they would lose, and they know they would lose   so what would be the point of killing us?  I don’t get it.  

     Then, one of my colleagues vomits passes out and passes away.  Needless to say, the rest of us are anxious.   Than another one passes, I scream to the Cuban in charge “What the hell is going on?”

     He chuckles and says you think you know better than we do. This is what we do to people who disobey us and don’t give us what we want.   Now the Americans will understand do as we say or more will die.   No more negotiating just dictation.  Tell the Americans this is what happens when they don’t give it.  Castro forever.  

     We ran out and look for payphones and dial 911, but there is no 911 in Cuba.  911 only works in America.  And each of us died the same death.  I’m writing to warn the other Americans before they come here to negotiate with Cubans.   If you hear a Cuban Coffee Music, leave.