Wednesday 30 May 2007

Blood Coffee

This is raw, un-edited, early-morning blogging material.
Some of it's ok.  Some of it's down right strange.


The man stood in the kitchen, his feet shoulder-breadth apart.  His knees were bent, his bowed head cupped in his hands.  Straightening his neck, eyes travelling up the wall and to the ceiling, the man rubbed his face with his hands.

12:36am.

The green LED clock on the microwave told him that he was thirty-six minutes into the new day.  Stepping up to the bench, the man picked up the Marmite lid which was full of freshly roasted coffee beans.  

How long had they been there?


Manhandling the green, marble-textured mortar and pestle from where it sat in the corner of the bench - by the stove-top, the man positioned it in a more accessible position, nearer the sink.  Half of the contents of the Marmite lid were spilled into the mouth of the mortar cup.  The man took up his tool, applying the pestle to the mortar, rending the brittle coffee beans assunder.  A few seconds into his task and the wonderful aroma hit somewhere deep in his nostrils.
---------------

The sweat dripped from his brow and from his nose.  A constant and chilling stream dripped down his bare back, choosing the channels caused by excessive use of the Rhino-hide whip of the excessively judicious and brutal overseeer.  The heavy breathing from the men behind and in front of him.  The occasional scream of agony from a man as the deceptively soft whip tore into the flesh of his back.  The searing sensation of pain felt by every other man.

Chained to the massive mill-stone for sixteen hours of every day, the man had known nothing else from the time he was ripped away from his young mother at the tender age of twelve.  Sharing the same fate as the other eleven men in the room, the man was chained to one of the six huge beams, each of which formed a diameter of the well trod circular path which the men walked for what seemed eternity.

There was the constant stream of coffee beans; a black excretement from the room above them.  Who knew what went on up there.  These men knew only their task.  These men's only task, their life.  The beans in a constant stream, as thick as any one of the men on the mill-stone's fore-arm fell for sixteen hours of every day.  They tumbled down through the gaping
 hole in the top stone and were then crushed between this stone and the stone beneath it.  
The robotic vacum arm travelled round the bottom of the stone, sucking up the ground beans 
through to the next processing room in the factory.
---------------

...Yes, his fingers were stiff from typing.

The man's right wrist was strong and controlled.

"You don't push it down too much..."
 

2 comments:

  1. Hey Andy, I followed you here from the Reb. Is this a real human-rights abuse? I wouldn't be surprised... but I'd like to know.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Phoebe, this is a story I wrote. Yes, it is based loosely on facts, but none in particular, just curse of slavery in general.

    I usually spend more time with a story like this.

    See the story about Durian, or one of the Mr. Raxworthy posts for an example!

    Thanks for dropping by.

    ReplyDelete

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