The Cost of Coffee
part 13
Prompts for 23 May 2025 from
Write about a sailor without a ship
the eye of the moon
“You don’t know the half of it”
A character who can’t speak
Pinta watched as Phobos rose over the Martian horizon. Without an atmosphere, Pinta could clearly make out the craters that covered it like hundreds of eyes watching. What she wasn't sure whether the eyes of the moon were watching her or watching over her. She'd been having more fanciful thoughts in the weeks since she saw her father's artwork and the underground vault. The idea that story was important in a culture worked its way into her dreams, even. Instead of her normal dreams of coffee or school work, she now dreamt of fjords and mermaids in full color.
Pinta looked into her empty coffee cup. The brew was half-strength as the community tried to extend what wasn't destroyed as long as possible. Some people had returned to mushroom versions, but Pinta would rather have a little of the real thing rather than a full cup of the gritty beverage. She doodled on her tablet while she waited for her sister. Her drawings always included maritime scenes now: sailors on ships surrounded by sperm whales, icebergs, glaciers, and even once a sailor with an eyepatch and a peg leg standing shipless on a rocky shore. She had no idea where the images came from. She didn't really think when she drew; it was just a way to keep her hands busy.
She looked up when she heard Naimeh's footsteps. When she had asked Naimeh about her journal, Naimeh just looked at her and put a finger to her lips. She hadn't spoken much since returning to work. On her days at home, Naimeh played checkers with Father, but neither of them spoke. Pinta tried several times to engage her in conversation, but she remained quiet, like she couldn't speak--or that she was afraid to say anything.
Today, Naimeh's eyes sparkled. She unfolded a new checkerboard and pulled out a box of turquoise and purple checkers. The board itself was not the standard black and red, but rather 64 squares of white and light blue. Each square was slightly indented to various degrees, so it would be impossible to slide the pieces. Pinta was surprised and a little disappointed. When Naimeh had sent the message to meet in this corner of the park, Pinta had hoped it would be a chance to talk about the journal and her poem, not play a game of checkers.
"Um, that's a gorgeous board, Naimeh. Wouldn't you rather play at home with Father?" Pinta looked at Naimeh's face, waiting for an explanation, but Naimeh only smiled as she set up the game. She placed the 12 turquoise pieces on the board in front of Pinta and the purple ones on her side. She twisted a couple of them and then indicated that Pinta should move first.
At least, that's what Pinta thought. When she looked down at the board, she saw words spelled out in both the pieces and the empty squares. She read, "we have enough" and gasped. She glanced at Naimeh, who seemed focused on the board as if deciding what move she wanted to make. Pinta touched one of her pieces, as if she planned to move it. Naimeh's words vanished and Pinta watched as the word, "where" appeared on the board. Turning the piece a little changed the word to "what." Another turn became "how." Pinta decided that was a good word to start with. She touched another piece and saw that it was a single letter. Spinning it, she found vowels. Another piece revealed six consonants: R, S, T, L, M, and N. Consonants H, F, D, P, K, and X were on another. Three pieces could spin out the most common letter blends like "bl" and "fr." It was a brilliant shorthand to write sentences while playing a simple game. Leaving "how" in place, Pinta pulled her hand away, indicating her turn was over.
Naimeh caught her eye, obviously pleased that Pinta picked up the purpose of the game so quickly. While Naimeh took her turn, Pinta thought about all the times she had wondered why Naimeh and Father played checkers so often. She made a mental note to take a closer look at the home checkerboard. She suspected it was actually a prototype of this one. Naimeh kicked Pinta under the table to get her attention. She hadn't done that in years, so Pinta giggled as she read the board:
"details not matter. will explain tomorrow. fathers office with noon meal." With that Naimeh jumped over several of Pinta's pieces and landed in the last square. "King me," her face said triumphantly. Pinta grinned as she added the second layer to the piece before making her own move across the board. Pinta was out of practice, and Naimeh handily won the game.
***
Naimeh had already laid out a simple meal in the messy office: smoked meat, cheese, flatbread. The fires had not harmed most of the processed food in the Bio, and the affected agriculture sectors were already beginning to recover. People assumed everything was fine as long as food was available, and no one had yet asked too many questions about the shortage of fresh fruit and coffee. There had been cyclical slowdowns when the Bio first opened to immigrants from Earth, so Leadership just let the rumor float that this was a seasonal experience. Pinta looked around the office; it was as chaotic as she remembered. Just as she sat down to eat, the door opened, and Arturo put his head in the door. Pinta's heart skipped a beat, remembering both his voice in the argument before the fires and after she woke up with stitches in her head. She tried to settle her face into a normal expression.
"Hello, ladies." His slippery voice gave Pinta the creeps. "I did not expect to see you here. I thought you both had work to do."
"Naimeh is on her day off and I have finished my school work for the day. We thought we would surprise Father with lunch, but he isn't here yet." Pinta hoped the shaking in her voice wasn't as obvious as it felt.
"Hmm, well, your father was supposed to put a folder in my office this morning. I think I'll have a look around for it. Although I don't know how he finds anything in this chaos."
Pinta thought, "You don't know the half of it." But she nodded for Arturo to come in and she moved out of his way.
"You girls come for lunch often?" It seemed like Arturo was making conversation, but Pinta sensed some underlying menace to the words.
"Just now and then," she answered. "We like to surprise him, so we just show up without notice. He's usually here, so we thought we would just wait for him to come back." Naimeh made herself look busy rearranging the meat and cheese so Arturo could not make eye contact with him. He moved toward her anyway.
"You're awfully quiet," he said as he reached for Naimeh's shoulder. She stood still, as if waiting for him to touch her. She seemed to shrink in his presence. Pinta interrupted his movements.
"What does the folder look like, sir? We can help you look for it."
Arturo scowled at her. "Just tell your father I need that folder." He spoke as though he held the superior position of author, not a manager doing what he was told. He gave Pinta the creeps. "Let him know I don't like waiting." He turned to leave just as Father's tall frame filled the doorway.
"What are you doing here, Arturo? I just left the work orders in your office. And daughters! What a lovely surprise to see you today. And you brought lunch? Most excellent; I'm famished." With that, Father escorted Arturo through the door, closing it after the balding manager stalked away.
"Let's eat, my loves. It looks perfect." Father poured water into three chipped cups that he pulled from a low cabinet. Pinta looked at the inscriptions on them:
"He that loveth silver shall not be satisfied; this is vanity."
Father held his cup for a toast, "To what is enough and to what is to come. To our continued health."
Father is a clever chap. Arturo is a creep...