I'm sorry to say that I let my daily moods get in the way of my desire to write something once a day. You can't force it, I suppose. But I felt weirdly inspired to let loose with this random piece now, so here you are. Something that just came to mind.
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"How do you take your coffee?"
"Black," She replied, "Like my soul. But maybe sometimes it's a little bit tan, like the tired parts when it's worn almost to the brink of holes."
"You're not serious."
"Of course I am." She looked at him blankly for a moment, then furrowed her brow as she considered exactly what it was she was saying about herself with that statement. Or what she was hinting at, how odd she was. "But I'm not that strange, I promise. Just...once in a while. I get a little deeper than I probably should."
"Who is it, exactly, that's setting the bar for normal, anyway?"
"I suppose I thought it was you, just now. The way you answered me when I told you about my soul. Sometimes, when I get hopeful about a situation, I picture myself as a tiny person...the size of a Borrower, maybe. Jumping up and down with joy on those worn spots, and any minute now they're going to break and I'll fall through. That happiness, it's going to fall through right with me. And then there's nothing left to be happy about, with a great big gap in my soul."
"Well, I wasn't really setting the bar for anything. I just thought it was an odd statement to make, coloring your soul like that. Most people are pure white or black as coal- there's no middle ground involved. And most people certainly don't compare their souls to anything worn out."
"I feel like I am. After that last relationship, when I laid it all out on the table and bore my soul like a yard of fabric, he cut right through it before I could even measure what I was worth. It cost me plenty, I can tell you that. I'm broken in a way I don't know can be fixed, and even if there is a way to fix it I couldn't possibly tell you where to start. Sometimes I think I miss having someone fluff my pillows...and sometimes I think I'd really rather fluff them myself."
"How did we get on the subject of fluffing pillows?"
"How did we ever get off the topic of coffee? You asked how I take it- I think, today, that I'll take it with just a little cream. No sugar."
"Sweet enough?"
"Hardly." She put her hand over the cup before he could lift the spoon from the sugar bowl, shaking her head at the look on his face that indicated he intended to question the subject further. "I can't do sugar these days- one too many Wilfred Brimley commercials. If I ever get diabeetus I think I'd just throw myself under a bus. Diabetes, on the other hand- that doesn't sound so incredibly deadly."
"He always did have a way of making that word sound so much more foreboding."
"He really did. And ever since I saw his commercials as a child I refused so much as a Dum Dum, for fear I'd wake up one morning with a bushy salt-and-pepper mustache and a desire to walk around with a sort of hangdog look on my face. 'Hi, my name is Polly, and I have diabeetus.'"
"Well, Polly, I can tell you that one spoonful of sugar isn't going to usher you into the first stage of diabeetus, but I can respect your choice. All the same, I think I'll be taking a few spoonfuls of sugar myself."
"And I respect your choice as well, Paul. But I'd certainly like to know more about you. How do you take your coffee?"
"Well, we've established sugar. And otherwise...black. Black, with just a hint of sugar to say that my soul isn't quite a lost cause, but possesses just a touch of sweet innocence. Pure cane sugar mixed in with the acidic wash of what makes me who I am."
"And that is?"
"A man who takes his life just as he takes his coffee. Open to additions, open to adding just a bit more to broaden my palate. I'm looking to live a life that has room for change."
"And I'm afraid to add sugar to my coffee. But," She fell quiet, thoughtful, manicured fingers tapping lightly against the tabletop as she gazed into the ripples her actions sent across the surface of her coffee. After a moment her hand lifted, curled the same fingers around the handle of the sugar spoon, and she trickled it's contents into the ripples, disrupting them. "I can say with certainty that I'm ready to try."
"Just a little at a time?"
"Just a little at a time."
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