Pulling a shot

I flip the button, and a red light illuminates. There is a soft whirring sound as the machine starts to heat the water in the basin.

I grab a fresh bag of beans off of the shelf. It’s a medium roast, with descriptors like “cocoa” and “nutty” and “hints of citrus” in bold lettering. Fair trade, too. Good. It’s nice to know some farmer in South America received a livable wage for their labor. Then again, I recall a paper I read in college about how there were few requirements for something to be classified as fair trade and that the label did more to increase the price on the consumer than to increase the benefit to the producer. I hope that isn’t true, but I refuse to look it up. Schrodinger’s coffee, I guess - I currently exist in a world where I can both enjoy my cup of coffee and still feel guilty about drinking it. That’s better than not being able to enjoy it at all, I suppose.

I open the seal, and the smell of the fresh beans hits me. I can smell the chocolate and floral undertones. I turn on the scale and measure out exactly 25 grams of coffee beans. I spritz the beans once and then twice with water. Something about reducing the static during the grinding process, I think? I am not really sure, but I do it anyways.

I carefully pour the now-wet beans into the hand-held grinder. Though I’ve done it a million times, a few beans plummet to the floor. I debate for a long moment whether I should pick them off the floor and use them anyways. But, I cannot remember the last time I mopped, so I decide instead that I will sweep them up later.

Hand grinding is not particularly difficult, but there is a certain rhythm to it. I have to grip the base of the grinder with my right hand as tight as I can, while my left begins to crank the lever round and round, gaining momentum with each spin.

I have therapy today. I am not sure what I will talk about during the session. I haven’t had any panic attacks lately. In fact, nothing has been going particularly wrong for me these past few weeks. Sometimes, I hate these sessions more than the ones where I have real problems to talk about. Because its easy to talk about a stressful event that happened at work, or an especially bad nightmare, or a new symptom that I am convinced is a sign that, this time, I really am dying from some incurable disease. What’s less easy is talking about the good weeks, and then having to admit that I still feel so sad all of the time.

I watched a woman die just last week. Video footage of her being shot in the face. Murdered in cold blood. Despite having been online for most of my life, I’d never seen someone die on screen before. In movies, sure. But real footage - I’d always managed to avoid those types of videos.

This time, though, I couldn’t bring myself to turn it off. It was as though I had to watch it. As though I had to force myself to bear witness. To not look away.

I had a similar feeling once before. I was in a country that I won’t name here, but suffice it to say that it was a country that is unable to provide basic resources to many of its citizens. I was sitting on a park bench outside a heavily guarded, walled-off compound, waiting for a security guard to finish processing my papers so that I could be let into a meeting with a government official. Across the park, there was a little boy laying still next to a pile of trash. It wasn’t until a fly landed on his face that I realized his chest wasn’t moving. I’d never seen a dead body before. It didn’t feel right to stare, but it also didn’t feel right to let myself look away. My eyes welled up with tears, and I remember thinking, “Don’t cry now. You’re about to have an important meeting and your mascara is going to run.” Right as the guard had called us in, I watched the little boy raise one of this stick-thin arms to swat at the fly that had landed on his face. He hadn’t been dead. Not yet, at least.

Everyone saw the video of the woman being murdered. It was all over the news and social media. It’s not like I knew her. I’m not even from Minnesota. I can’t use a stranger’s murder as the excuse to why I have been feeling so sad lately. It must be something else. Maybe I haven’t been getting enough vitamins. Or maybe I need to exercise more. Or, maybe everyone feels like this most of the time, and I am just the only one complaining about it.

When the grinding is finished, I remove the basket-like thing (I know it has an official name, but I won’t pretend to know what it is) from the espresso machine and carefully dump the powdery grounds in. There’s this tiny tool that I use now to flatten out the grounds. This is my favorite part. It’s basically a long-spindled comb. Apparently, it isn’t even an essential step, but I never skip it. There is something oddly satisfying about fluffing up the grounds and getting them to lie perfectly flat. Lastly, I pick up the tamper and press down on the grinds until they are pressed into a puck.

I click the basket into the espresso machine. The second red light on the machine is illuminated now, indicating that the water has been heated to a sufficient temperature. Finally, I turn it on, and a loud noise fills my tiny apartment. At the same time, I flip a timer on, and watch as the seconds slowly tick by.

One, two, three… It takes a few seconds before the thick espresso begins to pour into my cup. Just a drip at first. Then another. Eventually, there’s a small stream of rich, velvety brown liquid pooling in my mug.

I grab my phone, and absentmindedly click on my social media app of choice.

One of my friends is performing in a local theater. I’m glad they got the role. They have been working so hard. It’s nice to see it is paying off.

There’s a famine in Sudan, and nonprofits need donations. I used to work with a man from Sudan. I cannot remember his name, but I hope he is doing well.

Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen…

I scroll past an ad for fantasy-inspired corsets, which reminds me that I should start planning my Renaissance fair costume soon.

There’s protests breaking out across Minneapolis.

A meme makes me laugh, and I send it to a friend.

Twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-four…

My old college roommate posted pictures from her birthday party. Shit. I forgot to wish her a happy birthday. I need to remember to set a calendar reminder for next year.

I’m glad to see she’s doing well. I wonder if she’d want to FaceTime soon. I miss her.

Another man was shot in Minneapolis. He’s dead. Nine bullets fired, or maybe ten. The accounts aren’t certain. A “sensitive content” warning flashes across my screen. My stomach drops, and I wonder if I should watch the video footage.

I glance up, and the timer shows thirty-two seconds. I hastily flip the espresso maker off. I was going to make a cappuccino, but I’m suddenly feeling too tired to froth the milk. So instead, I consign myself to another iced latte, even though its the dead of winter.

I shuffle to the fridge, and grab out the jug of oat milk. My dad thinks I’m crazy because I don’t drink cow’s milk anymore. Then again, my whole family thinks I’m crazy for cutting out meat. I didn’t know how to explain to them that it helps keep the guilt from swallowing me whole every time I see a news article about global warming. I’m not naive enough to think that drinking plant milk and eating tofu is going to save the world, but at least its something, I guess.

I pour milk into the shot and watch as the two liquids clash, the espresso becoming a tidal wave against a milky sky. My watch buzzes to remind me that I only hit one of my three exercise goals yesterday and encourages me to try harder today.

I sigh, and grab my iced latte before shuffling over to the small, cluttered desk that is my office on work-from-home days. Somehow, between five o’clock yesterday and nine o’clock this morning, I received ten e-mails. I filter through them, marking the important ones for later and moving the others into their respective sub-folders. Nearly thirty minutes go by before I remember I haven’t had a sip of my coffee yet. I look down at it and frown. The ice cubes have completely melted already, forming a thin line of water along the top.

I take a long sip. It’s not as good as I thought it would be. Not bad, per se. But not great. And I’m not getting any hint of the cocoa undertones.

My inbox pings as another email comes in. My phone screen lights up with a notification - my friend responded to the meme I sent her with three laughing face emojis.

I take another sip. I wonder if I messed up somewhere in the brewing process. Espresso is a particularly delicate drink to make. Maybe the grounds need to be finer. Or maybe those extra two seconds brew time ruined it.

I’ll have to try harder tomorrow.