Once more, staring into the darkness. A cup of coffee and a smile.
A portal to the afterworld, the beforeworld, or any world, really.
Who could start their day without a hot cup of coffee? Not real people.
Even the fake people in her hot cup of coffee. They started their day.
Steam drifting and shoulders bare but sweaters ready for the cold to come.
She never took coffee with sugar or cream or anything like that.
–
Black coffee for her gift and for real psychics and charlatans alike.
For real psychics, it sharpened their mind, body, and spirit connection.
It sped up readings like a highspeed internet connection to hell,
Or wherever the holding area was, heaven or purgatory…
And her mother had always had a cup of coffee in front of her.
–
For charlatans, black coffee was a way of cheating. Of seeing things
In reflection like card numbers or people’s names. She knew all the tricks.
Her father was a magician when he was working before he left.
Her mother was a psychic. That is what eventually drove them apart.
And her mother had always had a cup of coffee in front of her.
Mrs. Carla the seer. Mrs. Carla the cheat. Mrs. Carla the liar.
–
And she didn’t go by his name. The Great Branzino sounded too fake.
But he was wise to the necessities of women’s lives and money,
And he could see his daughter’s future just as clear as her mother had.
And he taught her how to ‘see’ things and why she shouldn’t which confused her.
–
The whole thing confused her. Her parents. Her gift. Their divorce. Their distrust.
They both thought she was crazy for things she would see in her coffee cup.
Her father taught her lies. Her mother taught her truths. She learned to watch
To look at her coffee and not touch it and not disturb the visions.
–
She’d only just watched, but she always had her coffee in front of her.
And when she drank it, her visions were everywhere on every surface.
Every reflection held a world that she had trouble distinguishing from real.
Because she could change them and move them and bring them to life, to her life.
–
And they were real. Her father couldn’t see, and her mother only half.
And neither wanted to believe the things that she saw. Or what they saw.
Her visions were not always nice and seldom from that side of the void.
And she had pulled some through. Confused and sometimes scared and lashing out.
One was Judy from Kentucky. and the cops called her a runaway.
But she only wanted to get home and didn’t know how she got there.
She ran into the bathroom and locked the door and cried for someone’s help.
–
She was only seven then and couldn’t help that girl despite all her pleading.
An older girl begging a seven year old for help no one understood.
And that was the thing, when they came through, they wanted things. Always something.
Always strange and out of reach but, she’d always watch when she saw them.
And she was always regretful about what she’d seen happen to Judy.
–
She wouldn’t bring them through. She had grown to love them and wouldn’t hurt them.
Not Elmer. He was funny. She had only ever seen through his eyes.
Not the dead man with one leg. She thought she may never see him, in life.
Not the necromancer’s child that controlled powers of Hell and heart strings.
Not the avenger in the darkness with a lust for fresh criminal’s blood.
They were her family in every invigorating hot coffee cup.
–
But now, she was older and living in ‘The City’ on her own dime.
She wrote horoscopes for the paper and gave readings when she booked them.
She used her mother’s name because ‘Mrs. Linda’ didn’t have the right ring.
It was hard to make rent and her room was smaller with a man in her bed.
–
Naked, bloody, and liked to call himself Raul, but that wasn’t his name.
And all he wanted was a little toy boat with a red racing stripe.
She knew not to pull him from her coffee, but she thought that he might die.
She told him about the coffee after she’d cleaned up his wounds.
He said he had to believe her. Although, she didn’t believe he did.