Lust For Coffee

It's been pretty fucking weird lately. Scorching hot temperature at daytime only to fucking rain heavily at night. Absurd. It's like an inside joke by an imaginary God, one that only He can understand.

The Dunkin Donuts on Taft Avenue in Manila, the one across the Philippine General Hospital, is the best place to get brewed coffee (tolerable) and coupla donuts at a ridiculously cheap price (35.00 pesos) any fucking time; however, most importantly, it's about 3,500 footsteps away from my apartment, pretty near by my walking standards.

Midnight, May 26. It's raining, hard. I haven't eaten anything since, like, fucking forever. Of course, I am pissed. I have been unemployed for 2 months and when you're broke, money seems to multiply its value by the hundreds. Good thing I am used to long-distance walking; commuting seems like a fairy tale privilege when you're fucking broke. Tonight, I find myself in Caloocan City, about an hour's jeepney commute-ride away from Manila. I flag a jeepney and wallowed in its temporary respite from the cold and wetness of the heavy downpour.

30 minutes or so later, I finally arrive at the Dunkin Donuts across the PGH. I have a hundred pesos, which was actually coupla hundred a day ago. My friend Albert Repeater paid half of his debt to me recently and now, I am at the mercy of my last dough. I ordered a cup of coffee, regular size, and two chocolate donuts. I tried - again - to become a vegetarian the week before but it seems that I still won't be able to swore off dairy shit. My financial situation painfully made it crystal clear.

I work my way on the first donut. It tasted like a buffet serving in a diplomat's house party. The coffee served like a mental tranquilizer. It was perfect. Given the pouring condition outside, the coffee tasted something impossible to describe, something beyond words could fathom. I finish the donut and start on the second one. My cup was 1/4 less coffee now, but thankfully, it's still hot. I finish the second donut. It felt unbelievably good.

Then reality stung again. I was broke but somehow, I had to go on.

To pound on shit.

HARD.

I slowly drank the coffee and savored it lustfully. I finished it in about 8 minutes.

It's now half past midnight. My favorite time of the day. The city outside is still being ravaged by the furious and merciless rain. Somehow, my anger dissipated. To this day, it never ceases to amaze me on what a hot cup of coffee can do to one's erratic fucking mood.