Extraction Through Extraction

Extraction Through Extraction

“He took the beans, dark as onyx, from the cupboard and placed them on the counter.  The beans sat in a stone bowl-like container, dull and cold and weighty, worn from years of use.  The man was frail, old, and shaky- also somehow yellow-pale, with a long, triangular beard and a stringy mustache- he was Gandolf-like.  He did not wear a wizard's robe, rather, he wore the skins of long dead animals slung over his shoulder and tied at his waist.  Mumbling utterances lost to me, he stared into the bean container for minutes on end as if in rapture.  He did this in vain as the beans just sat there.  Shaking his head with bitterness, he put the beans back in the cupboard after a time and creaked around the corner slowly, solemnly disappearing for the day.

I went to the cupboard to examine the items that so gripped the man but could not find them anywhere within.  Opening the knotty wood door, I saw the cupboard was dark and seemed endlessly deep, but it was empty.  I searched with my arm full-in, but all I could feel was cool emptiness.  Stumped, I receded to the shadows of the house and sat silently unseen.

From time to time during the night I could hear the sound of wailing, a crying of forlorn angst, coming muffled through the walls, which mixed with the howling of the wind outside.  I felt damp and cold and exposed, but I waited for the coming day to rise.

Again, at the same time the next morning, the old man came hobbling into the stone kitchen, opened the cupboard, murmured gentle noises, and placed the shiny black beans on the counter.  His shoulders shook feebly as he stared deeply at them, and his breathing was thin as paper.  He was oblivious to me but I was fascinated and needed coffee to survive.  I stepped out of my crawl space and whispered a hail, only to have the man spin before me with a fierce look of danger on his face and in his eyes.  I started inside but physically remained unfazed and held out my arms with my gifts for him.

“Do not be alarmed, man, I come as a friend in need of coffee as you are,” I said steadily, gazing calmly into his eyes.

His eyes softened a bit as I spoke but then became sharp again and he crooked into the corner of the counter, afraid.

“What dark magic do you bring, ghoul?”  he shrieked at me pathetically.

“I bring no such thing, man, just a battery powered Milee Coffee Grinder, a Simplex Press Tube, and a Rindovi Coffee Scoop.”  I said assuredly.

“Ah, such magic wares to bedevil an old man.” he whimpered.  “Have your way, but then pass.”

Slowly, I set the grinder and tube on the counter, letting him see my every move.  He watched me like a rescued puppy, curious but ever so distrustful.

I scooped up some beans which slid into the scoop almost fluidly, and dropped them clicking into the grinder.  Watching the man, I pressed the “On” button and the flurry of noise and action besieged him like an epileptic seizure.

“Ghoul, take thy dark magic away.” he cried, holding his ears.  “Ah, begone now and leave me alone to die here in my own home.”

I ran the grinder a moment longer until the sound softened, knowing that the setting I had placed the burr to would yield a perfect grind.  I stopped the grinder and smelled the intoxicating aroma of freshly-ground, thousand-year old coffee beans and offered the man a turn.

He glared at me in a scowl, but slowly he unfroze and stood straight.  He took the plastic grinder chamber from me and held it close to his eyes, so close that his oily hair fell into the beans themselves.  He smelled the beans and his eyes popped wide open, as if he had sprung a leak upstairs or downstairs-he was amazed.

“What magic wares do you bring?” he asked, subdued.

I did not say a word, but took the coffee grounds from him and measured by eye an amount for the tube, which I poured in. 

“Hot water?”  I asked him earnestly.

Shaking, he crookedly walked to the fire and brought back a kettle to me.  I poured two cups worth in the Simplex Tube, stirred, and steeped for one minute, guessing at the time.  The man went to a separate cupboard and took down two hand-made mugs, painted in ancient hand, and set them before me.  I placed the tube over one mug at a time, and pressed the dark and steaming bean-juice into them.  I handed him a mug and watched him while he wantonly took a deep sip.  Light filled his eyes, then tears.

“You.” he said pointing at me, now crying.  “You. What magic?  Oh, now I know the secret of my forefathers.  I have heard for generations that liquid coffee exists, but, alas, now I know.  Magic, I say, these magic items.  Objects that crush nature into powder through your finger.  Objects that squeeze powder to black life-water before naked eyes.  Magic, I say.  MAGIC!” 

He screamed this last word so loudly that I feared my ears would bleed and it bent me over- double hard.  The sound was razor sharp and it went on for minutes, making me feel as if I were engulfed in a chasm of black noise, and then his voice changed to a distant echo and a I was blinded by a flash and thick smoke.  I opened my eyes timidly to have returned to you, my love.  I feared for some time that I would never return to hear your sweet breath at night.”

Jennybelle sat back in her chair and stared at me with a stone-flat expression and questions of sanity in her eyes.  She squinted at me for a second and then snapped her fingers slowly in mock-beatnik appreciation. 

“Very good, coffee man, very good.” she said, nodding mockingly.  “Quite an imagination you have this early in the morning.”  She was perfect poise in the midst of me- chaos.

“You see,” I said  “without my strong magic the man would never know the indescribable joy that is coffee.  I freed him from his life-long yearning to taste but a drop of freshly brewed nectar and in turn he freed me back to you...”  I was half pleading- to her or to me I did not know, nor did I know why I kept on with it.

“You are lucky that plastic and batteries and machined items and rubber have been invented, then.  And that someone was smart enough to put them all together for you.  Had it not been this way you may still be stuck there today, crouching in your shadows and spying on the poor man.” she said while putting on her coat.  “Now that you've returned from Alcatraz, remember to do the morning's dishes, dear.”  She leaned over and gave me a quick kiss goodbye.

I took a sip of the properly ground, correctly pressed, and absolutely brilliant coffee and agreed silently while my wife drove off to work, leaving me alone once again to my valiant thoughts.  Maggy, my dog, warmly placed her chin on my knee and wagged her bushy tail in what I thought was fitting appreciation.

-Mertz-