This is the latest serving of ‘Double Espresso’; two short stories based on the same prompt - a 50-word tale, and a 100-word imagining. Two sho(r)t stories … the Double Espresso.
Throwing ideas around with JoJo after our first coffee of the day, the phrase ‘the daily grind’ popped up as a prompt. I love a double meaning, so the notion of both the commute's rhythm (or boredom) and the need for a coffee to fuel another day as a wage slave caught my imagination.
These are two of those stories. Coffee break fiction.
Rush Hours
Grabbing an overcoat as melting butter drips off toast held between gritted teeth. Over-revving the car while leaning to wedge the keep-cup into the broken holder. Three minutes late already. Her favourite saffron scarf butter-stained. Shit. Dry cleaners on the way? Look left, pull out. Air bagged coffee. Late now.
(50 words)
Day after day. The same routine. But why? When do moments of clarity strike … when do we change the course of our lives? How do we get off the hamster wheel?
But first, coffee
One eye on the Swiss-designed station clock, one on the sluggish queue for the freshly roasted double-shot. Four minutes before he needed to join the sardines in the tin that conveyed them to ungrateful bosses and anonymised cubicles for repeated episodes of ‘Exploit the Wage Slave’. Maybe there was a hidden camera counting down to his usual missed coffee and no seat. For what? A bollocking for colleagues’ mistakes, a late finish to prepare reports that’ll be ignored ‘til Monday. Crepuscular light filtered by industrial age girders scattered the queue as the 6.53 pulled in. Rare clarity. He chooses coffee.
(100 words)