A New Yorker With a Broken Heart Must Now Pay His Rent

That first gulp of iced coffee is inexplicable.

It’s the feeling of wearing a pair of sweaty beer-stained glasses for the past twelve hours and finally getting the chance to sit down, wash your face, and rethink your life. You prefer dark roast; it’s crisp, with defined edges.

Quite unlike your life.

It’s six in the morning as you sit on the curb outside your second Dunkin Donuts and think about how shit got really real, really fast.

Or not. You don’t need to think about it; you’ve got a large in one hand, and a small in the other.

“Really. You want both a Large and a Small?” It’s too early in the morning for Dunkin attitude.

“I’ve had your large, and it’s not large enough.”

The large is a farce. You should have gone to Starbucks, where they serve a vat called a Trenta. It means thirty in latin or spanish or elvish or whatever. Whatever the unit of measurement, thirty is too many.

Yet it never seems like enough.

Maybe you do need to sort some things out. Some shit, as it were. You’re in a rut. Age is just a number, but that number is 24.

Sip.

You’ve got responsibilities. It’s tough to keep that in mind when someone else dances through your head knocking over all your best china. It’s not their fault though; you’ve never known how to properly store fine china. You’ve never owned any.

Sip.

What were you guys even fighting about? It was nothing, but became the only thing. My god, you’re high school. It’s over now. And so is high school.

Get out of this city, it’s dragging you down.

Gulp.

You start moving the straw around the slowly melting ice cubes, trying to get those best drops of sugar caffeine. You health nut.

It’s like in the Count of Monte Cristo, when Edmund Dantes is escaping from Chateau D’If, remember? Of course you remember, this is an inner-dialogue. Edmund is chained to a boulder and dropped over a cliff into the cold, dark sea. Forces large and unseen are grasping for him from the deep in thunderous metaphor. Yet somehow he miraculously unshackles himself at the bottom of the ocean, and fights his way to the surface.

You don’t have any of the skills necessary to do that.

If you were Edmund Dantes, the Count of Monte Cristo would be a short fucking book.

The large is done. You set the husk aside, out of sight and mind, and start earnest work on the small.

Against all odds, this one tastes even better, and you can’t help but smile.