Replacement Story
Matthew Ryan Fischer
Maddix sat in the coffee shop and slowly sipped his little piece
of mid-morning paradise. There were hundreds of blends of coffee and Maddix had
slowly been working his way through them all. There were strong blends and weak
blends. Some had extra kick to them. Others had none. And there were mixtures
of anywhere in-between. Maddix traditionally drank his coffee black, but today
he had added in an extreme amount of milk and a packet of sugar in the raw. He
didn’t go in for the fake sugars. There was no replacing the real thing as far
as he was concerned. Also, he liked the sugar in the raw because the crystals
were larger and they had a distinctive color to them. They were fun. They were
a little like hard candy. Most of the sugar made it into the coffee, but he
always saved himself a little bit for a snack. He liked to dip his finger into
the packet and then lick his finger. It reminded him of when he was a child and
would sneak snacks of brown sugar from the bag and hope his parents didn’t
notice the descending levels.
Maddix liked to think about his childhood. It always made him
smile.
As he drank his drink, his mind faded off into distant memories
and dreams. That was the nice thing about this blend – it was a hallucinogen
without any of the side effects of traveling. There was a little bit of sorcery
in each blend, but not all experiences were equal. Some people wanted to
travel, others only wanted to feel like they were traveling. Maddix was one of
the latter. Being a voyeur was enough. He loved the experience, but was afraid
to embrace it too greatly. He was worried he might like it too much and never
want to come back. He had heard such things could happen.
Usually he drank the drinks that showed secrets or revealed hidden
wonders of the universe. Some people drank to see the far past or the distant
futures. Maddix drank to see the other, the possible and what could have been.
Maddix wanted to know what could have been done or better what should have been
done.
But he was just a tourist. He didn’t want to touch anything, he
just wanted to look. He wasn’t trying to change fate or the future. Just seeing
the options was enough for him. He could sit back and enjoy an idea and spin a
thought for a while, but he wasn’t the type that needed course corrections or
pushing the cosmos in one direction or another. Some people wanted to bend the
fabrics of space-time. Some people needed this outcome or that change. Maddix
was okay with the normal, the regular, and the mundane. He liked his life. It
was his. He didn’t need it replaced. He just wanted to dip a toe in every now
and again and check his options. It made him feel better just knowing there
were options. He was pretty sure he wasn’t going to be smart or sure enough to
make a change and make the right one. He didn’t need to try and end up screwing
more things up than could ever be fixed.
Maddix was a dreamer. He liked to sit back and sip his coffee and
feel the warmth in his throat and his body temperature rise and the caffeine
kicked in. It was one of his favorite feelings ever. It was one of those simple
pleasures that helped get him through his day. But really what was more
important than that?
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