Everyday Canvas

That Second Cup of Coffee

Prompt: I spy with my little eye- You’re at work, like any normal day, and happen to look out the window as you head to the break room for a second cup of coffee. What you see makes you stop in your tracks: What is it?
Show us what you got...

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I am getting that second cup no matter what. Eric, my grumpy boss, might not realize that. I need my coffee before this hellhole of a job swallows me whole. Determined, I take confident strides toward the break room, but I abruptly slow down by the window near the door, since I see them, the clouds. Overhead, they are thick, dark, and foreboding.

Noooo! Not again. I am now cemented in place. Then I hold my breath and try to see, to envision, something else. Instead, I shake from the pressure of all that I know, all that I have seen coming. Maybe I am just born differently from others, for my senses are sharper, my primal instincts pure, and my resolve and courage unshakeable.

My self-styled knowing is not a foolproof system by any means, but I know clouds like these, in their gloominess, always replay the events from the past and the future of the cosmos. I say replay because whatever there is, whatever there will be, was already written before the sixth day of the creation. I know that, too.

“If Eric sees you dawdling here, you’re history, girl!” I recognize Candy, my co-worker in the next cubby, from her whisper voice, for she hisses like a cobra before leaping to attack. I shrug but don’t answer her.

She leans in to see what I am staring at. A few seconds later, a sudden flash catches our eyes. Was it a shooting star at daytime? I see it race through the air directly in front of the window and crash on the parking lot behind the business compound.

Candy gulps as flames with luminous streaks rise from where that thing crashed. “Did you see that? I mean did you see that earlier than me? Were you waiting for it?”

I nod, but I can’t even open my mouth. I can’t even tell her what that thing is.

She continues. “When you were looking out before, there was nothing. Then suddenly…that! As if you were waiting for that. Were you?”

From the fire smoke rolls in with the thickness of a dense fog. People on the street, right down below, have difficulty walking. I see them covering their mouths and coughing. Someone totters off-balance and falls.

“What is it?” Candy asks again.

I don’t answer her but point out to the tall, thin, and ghostly shape with many arms, two legs, and a head of sorts that emerges through the smoke. It is easy to notice that he is trembling. I gasp.

I know him. I know he is coming for me.

Abruptly, I push Candy aside and rush into the break room. He may come for me all right, but not before I get that second cup of coffee. Be it fire, flood, storm, or another-worldly creature, they can take anything away from me but not my black brew, as my second cup coffee is a rare possession I won’t part with.