Dark Coffee Stories
by Mordechai Shinefield

Lutes. That's what I thought about from amid the scent of burnt coffee beans, black pebble sacrifices to some old god who still demands suffering. The coffee shop reeked of insignificance. No one would ever turn it into a chain store, or write a novel about it. No great artists would sit in its dark caverns and talk about life and love and art and magic. It just wouldn't happen because of the stench and the depression and the man behind the counter who seemed kinda confrontational, like he might just jump out from behind the counter and slam you with a thick cappuccino. Spiked, like I need this kind of restlessness in the morning. Like I need to get drunk before I date before I party before at least 7 o'clock tonight.

But lutes. I thought about bards and storytellers. I thought about bars and travelers, going from tavern to tavern telling stories. The quality was better back then also. Without all the instant communication they had plenty of time to think up new tales of increasing wonder as they traveled over old (then young) Europe. They didn't do it for the drinks or the coffee. They did it to tell stories. That must be why we sit in cafe's today when we want to write, or talk about writing, or write about talking about writing. Some bards got tired and settled down. Some bar somewhere was more attractive than walking for miles forever. Not all cafes. Not a small cafe off South Street in Center City Philadelphia. No, not this cafe. This cafe is dark and danky and only good for genre stories (vampires and warriors and bards) or self-referential short stories about cafes.

I think chain coffee shops are more closely connected to any lost heritage [as if there was something lost to become unlost, but let's just pretend] because they spread over the land like a bard with his stories. All the coffee shops tell the same stories over and over and over and all at the same time and why not? Their coffee beans are better, and they have internet connections. So we can pretend to not be in them even when we are in them. We are them. I get that I am a bard, typing out my stories and sending them to cafes, because I'm too lazy to walk around the country. And I can't play the lute. For sure not. Wouldn't even want to try.

Drink your rancid coffee. It isn't anything new.