Cold Coffee

The man sat at the table, staring with unseeing eyes into the blackness of a mug of coffee. There was nothing interesting about the coffee, no swirling of cream as it blended, no curls of steam rising, yet the man stared into its depths.

An outside observer might think that he was lost in thought, contemplating deep subjects of philosophy or religion, perhaps the very nature of the universe itself and the role of the human race and its insignificance. In reality, the man could be considered to be daydreaming.

Daydreams. Those movies in the mind that play out recordings of the past, or fantastical visions of the future. The internal chess game of “what if?” How would my reality be different if I had taken that path instead of the one I actually chose? Where would I be now? If I change my life in this specific manner now, what can I expect of my future? What if I could fly, or be invisible?

The man did not have such lofty daydreams, although his mind was filled with a vision of the past. A past that was no longer available, a scene that can no longer be found. His daydream was of a black and white television screen at two in the morning. The national anthem had been played over clips of waving flags and marching bands. The screen test with accompanying test tone had come and gone.

All that was left was a screen full of static and the hissing of white noise. This is what permeated the mans mind, white noise and static. There was no form that could be discerned, no pattern.  The man literally had nothing on his mind. For the first time in his life, cognitive functions had lapsed into silence. There was no internal voice interrupting, no nagging from an unseen corner of his consciousness reminding him of something he should be doing. Blissful ignorance of the world around him, a withdrawal from the world, his problems, his doubts and responsibilities.

An irritating buzzing began to insinuate itself into the white noise. The random chaos was rudely having form imposed upon it. A sleepy thread of thought roused itself long enough to identify the interruption. “It’s the phone,” the thought said to itself before settling in to drift off again, “it will stop in a minute.”

Unfortunately, the sleepy thought had roused another part of the mans mind, the one that kept track of appropriate responses to external stimuli. It could not just let this event pass unnoticed, it had a job to do. Carefully, it tiptoed around the snoozing threads of consciousness, trying to allow those not needed to stay ignorant. It eventually found itself at the forefront of the mind, and it whispered its message.

The man suddenly blinked, and the static was gone. He stood and walked into the next room and looked at the phone. He noted that the phone was dutifully noting the fact that he had missed a call. He also noted that he did not recognize the number displayed as the source of the call. After waiting a few minutes, he decided that whoever had called did not leave a message and that he could ignore it without  disturbing the still sleeping guilt centers of his mind. He returned to his coffee and raised the mug to his lips. It was cold.

The man carried to mug to his microwave, and pressed the buttons that would use invisible rays to bring his coffee to the right temperature. Consciousness was already fading again, the body running mostly on auto pilot. A ding from the microwave, and the door was opened and the now hot coffee was moved back to the table. The man resumed his seat, the coffee sitting in front of him.

The man sat at the table, staring with unseeing eyes into the blackness of a mug of coffee.

As a break from what usually gets posted on this blog, this really has nothing at all to do with my life. It started as a simple idea I had a week ago that kept growing, and I decided to just write it down. This really is nothing more than a very short story, inspired by the thought of a mind full of static.

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