coffee | Fred Aiken Writing

March 29, 2023

The Perfect End to the Perfect Roast

The coffee roaster hears the popping developing inside the roaster. Water vapor begins to escape and the coffee metamorphs into a golden light brown. The coffee roaster takes the trier out and takes a deep breath of the coffee’s aroma in.

The coffee roaster smells the terroir. The coffee roaster smells the fermentation method used at the milling station. The coffee roaster smells the sugars that developed during the Maillard reaction. The coffee roaster smells everything that they did to the coffee’s anatomy.

Perfect, the coffee roaster thinks. A full-blown symphony begins within the roaster, as the coffee beans spin maniacally around. The coffee roaster is the composer to the sound of music.

A loud whirring sound begins playing from the cooling bin as the coffee reaches optimal temperature. The coffee roaster climbs in. The coffee roaster wants to become one with the coffee. As the drum’s door of the roaster opens, coffee spills out indiscriminately.

Heat is all the coffee roaster feels as the beans crawl over his blistered torso and limbs. It feels indescribably painful, since the coffee came out well over 400^oF. At first, the coffee roaster questions why exactly they climbed into the cooling bin as the coffee completely burns every fiber of their body.

But the coffee roaster reminds themself that the coffee is perfect, and now the coffee roaster is too.

March 26, 2023

Decaf and It’s Gone

thick aroma wafts through the air, sipping coffee with a vacant stare,

the taste is bitter, the flavor bland,

a pale imitation of nostalgic receptors firing off into obscure directions

but still I drink it, day after day, decaf coffee that’s here to stay,

a small comfort, a ritual, a habit kept like a secret lover sent off into the night,

a keyboard typing out a last will with the delete button

for in this cup of memory and forget, somehow I find a way to keep the past a secret

bittersweet reminder of what once was, a faint echo of a time that’s now lost

moments of reflection and pause,

the last drop, dripped, spilled, as the doctor note says, no more caffeine, no more thrills

February 8, 2022

The Eldritch Song

there’s some coffee still left in the pot,

there’s still some ketchup on the plate,

there’s a shit ton of words left unsaid,

and despite what the news says,

there’s still life to be wasted for another array of decades

made to facilitate the images, words, and creatures

of an estate gone wrong and rotten, for the eldritch to sing their tune