How Coffee is Made

Disclaimer: The following story features sensitive topics such as mental health, substance abuse, suicide and self harm.

How Coffee is Made

How did it feel to learn the day I would die?

I found myself after the visit. It was my apartment, or at least all that remained of it under the rubble of my sickness. A chaotic image of medical books, envelopes, mail and the such stretched over my counters, and leaked onto my floors. And I remember just … staring at them. Observing their every detail. Hoping that, for even a second, I can come to a conclusion of my own. Something tangible. Anything at all.

Nothing but dust. I was at a loss. There was no thought I could conjure. I didn’t pity my circumstances, nor was I particularly relieved. Hell, I wasn’t even sure if I had heard the news in the first place.

How did it feel to learn the day I would die?

My body feebly hangs atop my couch, my eyes are rolled over into a daze of nothingness. And I’m supposed to contemplate on how I feel?

I’ve long anticipated this. I poisoned my body thoroughly, and did it in full conscious. I look at my flesh and the rot it breeds, as the tissue sinks further into my bones. I can see their rot, too. Its sap pours violently out of my mouth, a black tar that now infiltrates my drains.

But … my, were they lovely while I knew them.

After all, out of everything in this life, how could it have been them?

In my teenage years, I did well enough to caution myself. I had seen the effects of my parents and grandparents before me. And I knew what it was like to feel the lungs suffocate in the vacuum of a car.

But there was so much of the world that I saw. And so much more I wished I had never seen. I’ve watched poverty erode families, and turn friends into killers. I’ve witnessed the needle-poke for its last time, and many other obscenities that were simply out of my control. With time, it wore me down. And I tried, as hard as I ever tried before; doing right by the world, and by my lovers, and of my friends. But they, too, went after me. The hostilities of the world put a stake through my heart, and slowly killed me of my spirit. But I found no light nor god who would claim my soul following after.

Instead, I awoke another day. Another ghost, haunting this droning carcass. And reality, and the things surrounding me, became as lifeless as I were. I witnessed the palettes change. These places, once warm and lush in color; their colors crumbled. And with that, I felt as if I knew I were in a hell of my very own. And in the bouts of a pounding mind, where the dead still struggle with their thoughts, I sought the little-things in hopes I could potentially resuscitate myself.

That day, not too deep in a post graduation world, I went away from my apartment doors into the earth to meet its soil. I find its nature, and I hope there will be a bloom. An explosion. A massive heat that pounds against me as it once did.

So … where has it gone?

A decent walk through the foliage later, I find myself resting on a lone bench. There is a field: completely empty. Trees fail to penetrate it any further beyond this bench, and a bike trail swerves its way towards civilization from this point onward.

Even in its dullness, it was an admittedly pleasant view.

But my heartbeat does something … irregular.

And my mind is revving itself, in ways I can’t seem to control.

I can feel my skin again, but in a far more grotesque way. Sweat sprouts from my pores, and my chest is restricting.

The air is still, and nature is fair. But my mind rips itself apart suddenly and without prompt. And before I’m even aware of it, I’ve collapsed from the bench onto the sidewalk. And in spite of it all, I’m frantically looking around.

I can’t afford to be seen like this. I would rather die than be seen like this.

I didn’t want anyone to interpret this moment of weakness beyond me. And so I sit in this secluded agony for some time.

Although my breathing is escaping my mouth, gasping for air that it can’t seem to reach – with time it learns to slow its pace again.

I recognize the corners of my vision. The sweating subsides, but my head is the heaviest of all.

Everything seemingly returned back to what it was.

And although I was still on the sidewalk, my posture transformed to be less feeble.

Sitting up, legs sprawled and arms limp at the side. And as my head is the heaviest, it is slumped to my left shoulder. I catch my eyes looking beyond themselves. And I can feel that this abrupt shock to the body robbed me of all my energy. And for what? I’m not exactly sure myself, to be honest.

Eventually, I surmised that it was time to haunt somewhere else. And I dedicated what strength still remained into lifting my body upwards. On my way up however, I catch a glimpse of something peculiar.

Originally I wasn’t sure why it caught my eye in the first place. But looking at it now?

A solemn box, pocket sized and kicked astray off the sidewalk. It so randomly infected the otherwise perfect patch of grass it touched. And I began wondering how I hadn’t noticed it sooner.

And then … I actually considered it.

I attempted to put off the thought. I was typically good enough at procrastinating or ignoring things, why would this be any different?

I realized soon though, that for one reason or another I couldn’t shake its sight. And I gave it some thought. Of my existence, the relationships I’ve formed. The ones that have fallen through, or the people who have died since I’ve known them.

I felt no desire to hold onto that teenage precaution any longer.

I had seen as much as I pleased, and on that day I decided to open my lungs for the first and last time.

I rejoined society in search of a lighter, and after my exit from the nearest gas station I decided this would be my method. There was no other way I could, in earnest, pull it off.

It’s been forever since I first felt that pounding drum inside of me. It begs me to submit to an end, for the sake of not enduring it anymore. Its pain reaches to me, it is my own pain. But I was unlike my peers. I couldn’t conform to torn flesh. I didn’t want to depend on that copper smell. And anytime I had gotten close, I found that at the last moment I couldn’t scrounge the energy nor the care to go through with it. No matter how close to the freeway, or how low on mouth wash.

It never happened.

And so, I plotted my own personalized long term suicide.

This thing, this tiny candle between my index and middle. I was drawn to it the deeper in thought, and I finally felt a spur again. This would be my fate.

And it was so; in a moment to end all moments, I let the parasite take me.

It goes off, a chamber in your mouth. Your throat and lungs, long hallways of ever welcoming warmth. They know they’ve let the devil in. But it stings. It’s rough, and it tastes rank.

You’ve seen people do it before, how did it go again?

A predictable cough, a first timer’s cough. As willing as I was, the initial greeting proved foul and unsavory. Yet, this candle continues. And there is no other choice than to meet it half way.

And you unlock it; you meet the sensation face to face.

A sheet has blown over your mind. You are numb, but not from apathy. Your head gets a buzz, and maybe it doesn’t last long. But it was there, and it was the realest feeling since you’ve died. It tells you to relax, it tells you that you’re in good hands now. And whatever ashes are left behind, were the bits and pieces of proof that you ever existed at all.

But our youth catches up to us, and with time we learn to pay for our naïveté.

It was this first cigarette. This damned thing that leaves me on a course for my deathbed now. No matter what followed, I seemed to always find myself with this little box attached to me. They can never quite satisfy the pockets. They burn against my fingertips, fiddling with them as I walk amongst the unassuming crowds. They don’t know that under covers, I carry this bomb.

And despite these slight pleasantries, my body conforms to a new rot. A decrepit thing, such of which has stolen me of my remaining youth. It plants itself comfortably inside, sprouting from seeds hidden under every organ and vein of what remains of me. And the true horror is not understanding any of it until it’s too late.

Nineteen: The first cigarette is smoked.

Twenty-three: My clothes have long reeked of this musky, repulsive smell. It clings to all clothes within the vicinity of my existence.

Twenty-five: My gums begin their burnout, and my teeth lose their original shade for a sinister yellow. At this stage, it feels too helpless- because there are reminders everywhere.

Twenty-seven: My lungs begin a free-fall, as several teeth have already rotted entirely. The walls within my home have shed their original paint for the same yellow that claimed my teeth. This was, also, the first stomach ulcer I developed. Many would follow after.

Thirty-two: The first CT scans. This horrific, daunting alien device. What it signified had shaken me completely. I don’t think I was ever prepared to find out how deep within the well this poison bubbled.

Thirty-four: I learned the day I would die.

And I look back to it now. To how everything began. Or to when I truly realized how things would be. And ironically, that I wanted this to be.

It was an innocent walk, sometime in my early twenties. A short trek to and from home, of which I did often to get out of the house. But in the depths of your chest, you feel a cocked gun. And it feels cataclysmic. The walk is brought to a screeching halt, and my body is now recoiling in disgusting ways as I go into repetitive bouts of ugly coughing. And for the first time, I can feel the tissue of my throat splitting with these strong gusts. And it doesn’t stop. It goes on, and on, and on. And yet again– I am back into this state of vulnerability like the few years before it. This coughing fit, it seeks to empty out my lungs. It gets intense enough to boil my eyes. But I am not within the comfort of solitude this time.

This sickness was for the world to see, as cars pass my left hand side. And some of them slow down to see what is happening, and some of them speed up. But they are all there.

I knew what was commencing. My countdown had begun.

Within time, your thoughts cascade into a chaotic frenzy.

Your friends. They’ve hurt you. Why must you return?

This pain is the only thing that’s ever felt real to me. I would seek to snuff it out, myself included, but in truth I had been chasing the things that brought me here to begin with. When I look at myself in my older years, I see the results of this abusive relationship I had been harboring.

It was an average Sunday, sometime in my early thirties. Where I would find myself in front of it.

The hardened results of my years of dying; my body coughs up something new, something rotten.

This bean-paste sitting in front of me. I hate what is born from me.

And I wished I had ended such a relationship years ago. But for so long I was so unaware. And sometimes, I can still hear that younger thought.

They were the only things that seemed reliable to me. They held my hands, even when I was alone. They kissed my lips, even while I remained kissless. Their toxins were a swansong that hypnotized me, and soon even the burning things hurt less. And soon, they were eventually preferred.

But we grow older still. We know the wreckage of our younger selves better than anyone. We look to where we’ve been and where we are. And think to where we will be.

And sometimes, we think to where we can’t be.

I exit my apartment, a day and a half after the visit. I have no intention of walking far. Lord knows I don’t want to push myself further than I already have. But, even in the short distance I have traveled, I couldn’t help but be puzzled by it. By all of it.

The grandiosity surrounding me. That, for the first time in years, the color is vibrant and glowing. And there is a wondrous concoction of nature that greets my nose fully. These leaves, they rustle and sing songs to my soul in a way that tongues could never dream. And in between them are droplets of the sun. I’ve never felt it cry on my face in such a way before. To feel the stretching of my skin. And the confirmation of my existence when I reach out my hand and my own chest greets me. And it feels as though this time, finally, I was taking that first breath, all over again. And I know there is life and love in this world. And the cruelties of the past are phantoms that sometimes dance wildly, but sometimes remain still. And this time – surely this time – I could finally live my life in complete freedom.

I collapse at the sight. It is clear now, I have overstayed.

How did it feel to learn the day I would die?

It felt cruel to care.