Fuck off and let me sip my coffee in peace – “Breaking News” is a bit of an overstatement.
I barely bat an eyelid reading that headline, in fact I was trying to search for what was so outrageous about this ‘news’ and my initial conclusion was – people still drink flat whites?
Forgive this minor digression but, if you’re going to have a coffee, surely choose something that has more than just the vague, oblique gesture toward a hint of coffee. I mean, maybe my body is made up of 80% coffee, which would explain why I’m so dehydrated, but – when you choose to splash the cash – at least pick something with some substance. Single shots are for the weak, a cappuccino is just hot air – I refuse to pay for inflated, warm milk.
Give me bitter, give me pools as dark as my eyes, give me something to stare at my reflection in, something to make me regret, give me something that’ll make me wince.
An actual, caffeinated, dark and aggressive cup of death. Get what you pay for, the violence of a full-on punch in the stomach that winds you, makes you start quaking, catalyses those bowel movements and reminds you that you’re alive.
And all that for £7? Almost sounds like a bargain? Right?
D’you know what, and I’ll hold my hands up and say it, that – just for a second – I really did think that it was a decent price.
I’m a London student. I pay to breathe. Sigh. (£2.80 gone, just like that)
It’s more of a depressing reminder really. ‘Breaking News’ in the sense of breaking my morale, the ruination of my credit score. My cracking self-trust. So, ‘Breaking’? Yes. But not news, no no. My bank account? Sure. My impulsive and frankly unstoppable clutch for the image of the sophisticated student to plaster over my own destructive behaviours – that perfectly curated coffee cup provides me with the illusion of student mastery – I can hide this crumbling façade behind quirky crockery.
Look.
It’s the East London coffee shop or the basement of the Student Centre, it’s being greeted by a hip barista who gives you a majestic wink and truly believes that they’re serving the elixir of the Gods or your 7th Red bull from a vending machine. When I’m submerged in the incoherence of my own thoughts whilst trying to write a passable essay, the one refuge I crave is normal human interaction. And that is epitomised in the untainted, uncorrupted, angelic presence of an East London barista. Cue the wind machine – this barista has gorgeous hair, just came back from a spiritual retreat and can read my fortune in the shadows of the bags under my eyes. Charming.
So self-assured. So confident. An existence imbued with such meaning. Honestly? I’m jealous. This barista is so invested in the ideology of the coffee bean that they know its backstory, its parents, the environment that shaped its upbringing – gently pressed, pampered and now roasted to perfection. I want to bathe and dream in those aromas, I really want to taste those hints of 83.5% dark chocolate, orange blossom, roasted almonds, the blood of Christ and my enemy’s tears. Anything to take me away from the putrid taste of battery-liquid on the sour breath of an undergraduate pulling an all-nighter.
Place that warm porcelain into my hands. I want to hear the barista whisper my name at me. Again. A little louder. And then shout. Repeatedly, now yelling, as I stand dazed and completely unaware of what my own name is anymore.
It’s certainly more glamorous than the robotic female vending machine who repeatedly declines my card and, with her slow, torturous collection of my chosen cylinder of liquid, delivers it with a mechanical clunk. Where’s the eye contact? The personal charm? The part where I think they’re in love with me? Where’s that extra hospitality that I’m certainly not paying for?
Maybe that’s part of the justification – it’s a seven quid experience. Don’t belittle it to just a flat white, it’s the atmosphere, the toilet that’s not blocked, the table that’s by a window. Natural sunlight. At least in the coffee shop you’re surrounded by people. Humans. Not students, but people with lives. Children. Goals and meaning.
Right now, as I look above this steaming bowl of coffee, I see only deadlines. My meaning is rooted in the next due date and, as the final one comes – will I cease to exist?
Is that why I cling to the £7 flat white? – without it, my existence cannot be traced in this world – I need to make my mark in heinously high-priced receipts across the East of London. That’s my digital footprint.
But, until I reach the point where an existential crisis becomes my next assignment, the East London coffee shop with its £7 flat white remains my alternate reality in which I can believe that I am productive, where I can disassociate for a while.
It’s an idea to believe in. A façade. And until my oyster card enters its negative balance, I will embark on my religious pilgrimage to the East.
