Kopi Rolas

Flash Fiction is a micro-story within the limit of 500 words or less. 

Word Count: 434 words

The scent of coffee has always lingered in my house since I don’t quite remember when.

Why my house, you said? Particularly, it is because of my mother. She is practically a coffee-devourer (brews it even eats it raw as a snack) that she enjoys coffee around 5 times a day. Just like shalat, although you don’t need an adzan preceding the ritual. And me. When I was a baby I could not digest any milk other than my own mother’s milk. As a result, I am not very fond of milk, even until now. I can’t stand the taste. I can’t stand the smell. It just reminds me of puke. However, calcium intake is necessary for kids and that is why my mother lured me into drinking milk by mixing it with coffee. And it’s incredible. It’s got a great smell. It warms your body on a rainy day. It can be mixed with chocolate and milk, even orange juice, and it still tastes great. It can be mixed with a cake, and you got tiramisu. Indeed coffee makes everything better, even something like milk!

My grandfather used to work in a state-owned coffee plantation. It has its own perks; one of them is that although he had already retired since I was born, the plantation always sent some of the harvest produce to him, which then he sent again into my house. He sent them to my house because,

‘I no longer have teeth, kid. When you are my age, it’s coffee that gobbles you’

Whenever I visit him, he also used to say, ‘Kids are not supposed to drink coffee yet. It will make your hairs fall and you’ll never grow tall’ as he poured me another cup of coffee. Then he knocked my forehead.

This day, however, he can no longer knock me in my forehead while warning me about drinking coffee would turn me into a bald-headed girl. Or when I take another cup of coffee early in the morning. This sunny day I saw him, watch him, dressed in a white shroud. My dad himself lay him down below. Then it was my dad also who shoved the red dirt unto him. Red dirt it should be, yet what I smelled was the lingering coffee powder that is pouring over his body, burying my grandfather whose teeth had all already gone because of coffee.

When I was sipping my 4 pm coffee this evening (yes that one, the same coffee I’ve always had since I was a toddler, the one from my grandfather’s plantation), strangely it tastes bitter. No longer better as it always was.

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Originally scribbled on February 8th, 2018

Note: This blog has a special part dedicated to flash fiction, but some might still wonder what flash fiction actually does.

Why write flash fiction? What is the purpose of flash fiction?

Because it works within the very limited criteria of word counts, flash fiction does not require many characters nor does it need a complicated and lengthy timeline and plot. Many write flash fiction as a warm-up before the actual writing. For writers, it is a great exercise to sort out the narrative style. Despite its brief nature, flash fiction could be very expressive. It works as a proper medium to explore genuine and universal emotions without the dilly-dally wordy descriptions. As a result, it helps the reader to better understand all the portrayed concepts/feelings/sensations.

Kopi Rolas itself was my very first attempt ever at creating flash fiction. The main motivation for creating them was to cope with all the loss and the intense homesick. This is the main emotion I would like to explore. Grieving away from loved ones could create a strong confining sense of alienation. Suddenly, connecting to people requires too great of an effort, so much that I gave up. Connection, bond, even something as trivial as working as a team was harder. As much as you overlook these human connections though, they are still there, dormant, waiting for us to give them another chance. And it is true, that the genuine one would help us heal. Perhaps not instant, perhaps excruciating, but as long as we gave them a chance, even the bitter could help us get better.

Read my other flash fiction about connection and separation: Our Briefest Correspondence