Coffee at Your Fingertips
Flash fiction - by Jason P. Burnham
The Kwik Coffee robot chimes when it arrives at your front door. You’re relieved to finally have caffeine on hand, but when you look out at the brown, wheeled automaton, its white tray is starkly empty.
Frustrated, but not totally surprised because it’s happened occasionally before (“uneven sidewalks” they claimed), you pull up the next coffee delivery app. You order a medium oat milk latte from the next place, then leave annoyed feedback for Kwik Coffee and request a refund. The refund comes through, along with a canned, probably auto-generated apology.
You wait in your foyer, sitting in the warm beam of sunlight that falls across the cool white stone. Even though you have no intentions of going anywhere, the lull of waiting makes you wonder what the weather will be like today. But you don’t think about much for long, because the next robot rolls up to your door in short order. You glance at it through the window—brown robot, empty white tray. You leave slightly more annoyed feedback, making sure to tell them they need thicker tires and better shocks for their robots to make sure there are no spills next time. You request a refund and try a different vendor, Travelin’ Tea, this time.
The second failed coffee delivery refund comes through, the same apology, word for word even though it is a different company. Definitely auto-generated, you think.
The Travelin’ Tea robot arrives, green where the two coffee robots were brown, treads instead of wheels, and a touch taller.
The tray, again white, is again empty.
You leave terse feedback, request a refund. The refund comes through, a canned apology, not that different from the coffee ones.
You’re down to your last choice caffeine vendor. But what else can you do?
So, you order from Coffee Curators, the red-and-white robot service, and wait.
Clouds pass overhead and it’s colder in the foyer without the light to warm you. You’re not looking forward to Coffee Curators. It’s always cloyingly sweet to match the candy-cane appearance of their delivery robots, but in a pinch you’d drink caffeine-laced aspartame stock if you had to.
The red-and-white robot rolls to the door and clangs its arrival.
The white tray has a cup on it—white with a brown cardboard sleeve. You have mixed feelings because you know it’s not going to taste very good, but at least you finally have caffeine.
You open the door and pick up the cup, but it’s too light and it's not even warm. You take off the lid. The cup is empty.
Disappointed, you place the empty cup back on the tray and close the door on the festive-looking coffee robot. You leave feedback on their app, request a refund. Refund comes through, a message beeps. Probably an apology, but you’re tired of reading auto-generated insincerities.
You put down your phone, for a moment, for distance from your frustration, but pick it back up to carry to the kitchen. Your pants don’t have any pockets so you scroll through for other caffeine delivery services. None strike your fancy.
There’s no liquid caffeine in the kitchen, which you already knew. Not even any chocolate. When did the grocery robot last come?
You schedule a grocery delivery, but the wait is enormous. You can’t wait that long for caffeine. You decide to go yourself and grab your car keys.
The car clicks and clicks but doesn’t start. You can’t remember the last time you drove.
You schedule a tow, but you don’t have to be there when the truck arrives, so, you get down your bicycle from the garage.
The tires are flat.
Digging through spider webs so old they’ve lost their adhesiveness, you find the dusty bicycle pump. You have to watch a video to remind you how to hook it up to the…valve stem, it’s called, which you may never have known before. With difficulty, you pump up the tires and open the garage door.
The clouds are gone and it’s bright out. You check the time on your phone—is it still morning coffee after noon?
You plug in the directions to the store—it’s been so long since you went. One mile; you could probably walk, but you already did all that tire pumping.
It feels strange out, but you can’t pinpoint why. The birds are chirping and you think how nice it is to hear them. When was the last time you stopped and listened?
The wind blows through your hair. It’s long now—you really should set up another robot hairdresser appointment for the backyard. On the other hand, it’s nice to feel the wind in your hair, and besides, you'll first have to schedule the grass cutting robot so the hairdresser robot doesn’t fall down trying to get through the yard.
You get to the grocery store and see the back up. The parking lot is packed with robocars—no wonder there was a long wait. You wonder if it’s always this crowded. Robocarts form a neat line out the door and you politely meander through them.
The store smells funny and it wrinkles your nose—something far more sickly sweet than even that disgusting bile Coffee Curators hawks. It’s been a while since you’ve been inside a grocery store, though. Maybe it’s just the deli—you remember the meat smelled like a janitor’s mop bucket when you were a kid.
The store’s layout has changed since you were last here. The entryway is a roboqueue, silent machines, gray all over except for the blue scanner bar that prevents them from running into each other. When you reach the front of the queue, there’s a bite to the air.
You grab a basket, one of the few available for human shoppers. When you round the bend, you find the source of the smells.
Rotten food, dripping from the shelves, flies buzzing, rats scampering at your presence. You move past the fruits and vegetables, black and oozing. Past the meats, which have progressed past mop bucket stank to that of a long-neglected waste receptacle. The processed foods are all gone.
And now you see why the robocarts are all in line—there’s nothing for them to pick up. Nothing for them to deliver to the waiting customers at home.
Slowly, benumbed, you put your basket in the return slot and leave the store. You get on your bike and go home.
You sit in your foyer and search the app store for a new coffee delivery service. You’re willing to try them all.