The Queen Is Dead. So What?
Afterglow Coffee, Richmond, Virginia. Visited September 19, 2022.
Intro
The queen is dead. So what?
A hurricane slams the Dominican Republic. Japan braces for a typhoon’s wallop. Also, “In a Ukrainian forest, Russian retreat means digging up the dead.” At least the pandemic is officially over, jk.
I just want a coffee. I need a coffee. Otherwise, I’m going to crawl in bed, close my eyes, and sleep all day.
“What can I get you?"
"I'll have a large drip coffee."
"We just have the one size. Is that okay?"
I expected I’d need to get lucky to find a seat, but it’s practically empty in here. I’m one of four people. Where is everyone? I smell raw egg. Now I smell an egg cooking.
A man wearing a navy-blue polo shirt, grey shorts, and black-and-orange Nikes, sits at the table next to me, opens his laptop, and answers his phone. Silence, silence, then giggling.
A Loan Is Not a Gift
Why is asking for some control over your time treated like the worst thing you could ask? It’s always a struggle to have some say in how you spend your day. The whole shebang is predicated on the opposite, that your time is not yours, that time does not belong to you in any sense. It is treated like a gift that you’ve been given. But not a gift, exactly, because it can be taken away. It’s more like a loan. You’re supposed to be grateful, as if you’ve been given a gift, but you should also be prepared to pay back the one who gave this so-called gift to you, with interest. It makes little difference whether you object to or reject the exchange. You are at the receiving end of an ideology, in which a loan is a gift. It doesn’t make sense to you. It shouldn’t make sense to anyone. If you don’t have a say about how you spend your time, it’s the same as not having a say about how to live your life.
Setting a Scene
There are lamps, plants, glass jars, hearts imprinted on coffee mugs, mugs with imprinted roses, mugs with imprinted strawberries, black and white stickers covering an electrical box, brick walls painted white, exposed duct work, an ALL GENDER RESTROOM.
Enough Is Enough
Sometimes I want to hurt the people who hurt the people I love.
Extending a Scene
A section of the floor plan is roped off for the roasting equipment and the big, burlap sacks of beans. An employee in black jeans prepares to roast. Then, the humming of the roasting machine. Then the smell of roasting beans.
Paradox
Before I fell asleep last night, I had a thought: What I want is impossible, because I have lived one life, X, and I want to know what it would have been like to live a different life, Y. But if I’d lived life Y, I’d have wanted to know what it would have been like to live life, X. I can never have knowledge of both these lives, but that's what I want. Essentially, I want to live one life and then live the other but know that I lived the first life, so I can compare them.
Outro
There’s a storeroom with a bucket and a mop, rubber gloves, all the cleaning supplies. There’s art on the wall -- a building in front of mountains and blue sky with orange streaks. There’s music on the speakers, but I don’t recognize the songs.