Caf-Fe 93Alexis Veenedaal
600 words Three yellow dandelions, plucked and placed in the tin cylinder drilled to Caf-Fe 93's chest plate. He prodded each with a thin metal finger, angling the blooms to face forward. Ah, to smell the sweet blossom. It must be nice, mustn't it? The ones with gastrointestinal requirements certainly said so. Caf-Fe 93 ground his wheels and spat up little pellets of gravel. No punctures or leaks in his tires. All greased up. He tapped his back cannister. Water? Slosh. Beans? Rattle. And he was off! He scooted down the valley and up the hill, meeting the morning's golden rays over the little settlement. He rumbled down the track, sloshing and rattling and squeaking all the way to the outskirts of the first leaning buildings. The girl waited for him, as she always did. "Hello, Ang," Caf-Fe greeted, mimicking enthusiasm; it had gotten so easy that Caf-Fe 93 forgot how he did it anymore. "Hello, Caf!" said little Ang, shining brown eyes and three feet tall, black pigtails puffed with pink scrunchies as she called them, an old word from an almost forgotten world. "How was your power-down?" "Quite pleasant," Caf replied the way he always did, and reciprocated in the usual fashion using the oxygen-gobbler's terms. "How was your sleep cycle?" "I dreamt I was a fish and could swim all the way to the bottom of the big lake!" Ang beamed. Caf approximated the girl's wiry smile complete with head tilt. "Is that normal?" She flopped a shrug. "I dunno. Hey, you got the good stuff?" Caf bounced his pneumatic piston, and the beans shook in his back. Ang stuck up her hand. Caf lowered the pressure in his torso and gently encompassed her little squishy fingers in his long spindly ones. He flashed the blue light in his optical sensors. Ang grinned anew and led him skipping down the dirt road into town, as if he hadn't spent the last 121.7 years manoeuvring the same path. "Mr. Caf is offering a fresh brew of the finest coffee in the valley," Ang informed the elder blood circulator, Mrs. Poppy. Mrs. Poppy raised her bushy white eyebrows. She did that every time. Most of them did. The growth-stopped ones. Or they would pull their mouths down at the corners and exhale loudly. Scoff, was it? Ang never did that. "Not today, " was Mrs. Poppy’s reply—the same as yesterday, and the day before, and 25,915 days before that. Caf-Fe's caffeine customers had dwindled to one. For a while, there were none. Until Ang came along. "That's dirt!" They would spit. Or, "Wood chips!" But Caf-Fe had only ever brewed the best coffee beans. And it's not as if he could test the flavour. Had the carbon-exhalers lost their taste for it since the Continental Fires? "That's okay," Ang consoled Caf an hour later as they walked/rolled back to the edge of town. "Perhaps tomorrow." She made that promise every day. His internal engine still warmed every time she said it. "Thank you, Ang," he hummed. Ang kissed his hand then released it, sticking hers to her hips. "Now! I'd like my cup of coffee please." Caf-Fe happily buzzed, steamed, and dripped away, producing the filled muddy brown mug with a little crack in it. *** Ang took the cup and put it to her lips. She tipped it, pretending to sip the ground dirt clods. The poor coffee robot hadn't had beans to roast for fifty years, according to the elders. But so what if his wiring was a bit off? Or his limbs were a bit rusty? Brewing made him happy, machine or not, and for as long as he wheeled into town every morning, Ang would be there to drink his coffee. |
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Alexis Veenedaal
Alexis Veenendaal grew up on a farm in Alberta, Canada. She earned a B.A. in English Literature at the University of Lethbridge before moving around countries and settling in Wales with her husband and cat. When she isn't writing or working, you'll find her reading, crocheting, bookbinding, designing fantasy maps, or playing D&D with her friends.
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