By: Joshua Lipit
Artwork by Zamantha Guanlao
Booked a cab… reclined in a chair as I listened to the same familiar songs you usually hear over the radio on a Sunday morning. Nothing was new. Everything was familiar… as if I was having a feeling of déjà vu. Everything was in the same cycle, same routine, same everything.
I tried to spice things up a little bit. I found myself standing in line at an unfamiliar café where a lady was holding out a cup with my name written on it. I assumed it was mine, so I took it and simply thanked her. I am not really a big fan of coffee… especially those that come from high-end coffee shops… where people try to spell your name and end up writing “Jhonnie” instead of “Johnny.”
Going back, I tried to return to what I was doing. I was supposed to write a fiction-based essay… to be passed tomorrow for my project in Creative Writing. I barely made a paragraph for two hours. No bright idea was coming into my head. I sipped my hazelnut latte with two extra shots… hoping that it would help in getting some ideas on what to write for my paper which was due on the next day. However, just like any other method, it didn’t work.
Immediately… after drinking my coffee… things started to get wild. Everything was alive. My pen started to blink at me as I continued to stare at it. My lamp started to flicker… on and off… as if it was seeking attention. The colors started playing around me. Hues and saturations began joining them. So, this is what coffee feels like. I was getting pumped up. My fingers started to move without my permission… slowly enabling me to continue with my rubbish paragraph. Confusingly, all of that did not frighten me, but a bear-like creature staring at me from outside surely did.
Focusing on the creature, its face tells me that it was raging mad. “Maybe it’s just a bush planted in our neighborhood,” I said as I tried to comfort myself. Getting another sip of my coffee, I then continued to finish my paper, but it was very hard to focus with a six-foot-tall monster staring at me the whole time. I blinked, hoping that it was just a figment of my imagination from my “coffee dimension,” but it did not budge. In fact, it walked toward me.
The creature got madder and madder with every step it made. Its pace got higher and higher as its teeth came out… hoping to get even a thread of my flesh. I could not move. My mind was blank… and so was my paper. I tried to finish my work and ignored the beast that was coming right in front of my window.
I heard a glass-shattering sound while I was finishing up my essay.
“Who are you and what do you want!?”
I mustered up all the courage I had. It came toward me with its creepy smile. The monster’s every footstep was heavy, but I firmly stood. I raised my chin… hoping that it would lessen the fear I had… but the monster was right in front of me. I suddenly forgot how to spell the word ‘courage.’ It was angry… like it wanted to eat me! I thought my life was ending… until it spoke.
“Hey! Wake up and pass this essay!”
