Remembered: Refills

Credit: Kate Tomlinson, Flickr

Everyone else has fled the bleak little break room at the back of the funeral home for the bleaker visitation room at the front.

Except me.

I’ve stayed in this too white, too bright room, sitting at one of the little circular tables. A tired sentinel in black and pinstripes, lazily guarding the food, the winter coats hurriedly flung over the chairs, the purses left at my side, and staring at the Styrofoam cup in my hands, thinking that I should have remembered my travel mug.

We’ve not even been here for an hour and this is my fifth cup of coffee. (By the end of the afternoon long visitation, I’ll be amazed if I’m not making the floor beneath my feet vibrate.) I’ve tried to make myself feel better about the Styrofoam by reusing my cup, made it identifiable by crimping the rim of it with my thumbnail and scratching my initials into the side. Deep enough to be read but not deep enough to let the coffee seep through.

The last scritch of my nail on the foam sends chills up my spine, makes my ears hurt.

It’s too loud here, with the nattering hum of fluorescents, the electrical buzz of fridge and soda machine, the gulping burble of the ancient restaurant style coffee maker.

And too quiet.

I can hear my pulse in my ears, the chilling hiss of the November wind beyond the door to the patio, the whisper of dark, stiff formal clothing just around the corner.  

I take another sip of coffee.

And it tastes like home. Like spring Sunday mornings on the coffee shop’s sunny veranda. Summer afternoons in my living room, on my parents’ porch, my granny’s patio. Late night cravings satisfied at a greasy spoon that’s overflowing with people. Talk of hopes and dreams and future plans, trips to take, sights to see, and everything so far away from this too loud, too quiet, alien place that’s slowly filling with the stench of flowers.

Maybe that’s why I keep going back for refills.

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For this week's Write on Edge RemembeRED prompt, we were supposed to write a (true) memoir piece featuring coffee, wine, or chocolate.

I went a little stream of consciousness and came in under the word limit.