It's Just An Empty Cup Novelas e Histórias

The kind of empty that has coffee in it. There are two mugs on the counter. Both poured. Both are still warm. The black one is his. The caramel one is mine. He has drawn a small heart in the foam of mine. The heart is the kind of heart that a man draws in foam when the man is a man who has been drawing hearts in foam for a woman for weeks, in the way that men draw hearts in foam for women they love. I look at the mugs. I look at the counter. I look at the apartment.

The smell of coffee still lingers in the air. I stop beside a table—her table—a white porcelain cup sits untouched. Lipstick marks the rim. My fingers brush against it. Cold. She hasn't even finished it. Something twists violently inside my chest. I close my hand around the cup; the porcelain cracks, a sharp edge slicing across my palm. Blood rolls between my fingers. I don't feel it. Nobody moves. Nobody breathes. The only sound in the entire cafe is the slow drip of my blood hitting the floor.

A turn of the switch and the machine hummed loudly, milking the coffee bean into the cop. The inside was dark black, staring into it was like staring into a void. A soul less, endless void. I waited patiently until the last drop of coffee slipped down. Next I grabbed the cream and some sweetener. This was not one of those days my tongue needed a bitter feel. My spoon swirled, clanking the corners of the glass cup, when I settled in front of the television for a movie, I heard my phone beep. A message from the same unknown number.

June nods and moves on to the sideboard. No point. The phrase follows me when I leave her. The breakfast room is empty and echoing. Thomas’s newspaper lies folded on the tray, unread. His coffee cup hasn’t been requested, no plate waits beneath its cover. Sunlight stretches across the polished table and finds nothing human to warm.

was just a beautiful and fragile mask. I picked up the cup and drank the rest of it, letting the warmth settle the trembling in my chest. If this was a war, then the coffee was a parley. A brief, caffeinated truce before the real battle started. I looked at the empty cup and realized I didn't want to throw it away. I wanted to keep it, to hide it in the back of my desk like a trophy. I wanted to prove that even in the wreckage of our lives, something of us still survived.

“Alright! Spill! What’s going on?” “Nothing. I just thought you might want to have a drink.” She pulled another one out, downing it in seconds before tossing the empty bottle into the trash. I watched her for a second before downing both of the bottles in front of me. “These cupcakes better be worth it.” “They will be.”

I had spent six months drifting across the ocean on a cargo ship, but I would send 20,000 dollars back home every month. So, I really only had one thing on my mind the day I finally set foot on solid ground again—my wife's pork rib soup. When I pushed open the front door, I found my seven-month-pregnant wife, Sophia Merkin, sitting on our worn-out sofa. At that moment, my six months' worth of exhaustion, frustration, and pent-up anger from the roiling life at sea surged to the surface. "I've been busting my ass out there and working more than 10 hours a day. Yet, I don't even get a hot meal at home when I'm finally home?" Sophia said nothing. Instead, she walked over to the refrigerator

He calls out in a tired tone. Soonly enters the room and hands him the cup and leaves. Once she closes the door he takes a long sip from his black coffee and sighs. A few moments later he is done drinking and places down the empty cup. He opens up his laptop and starts typing something before looking around his office.

I gave a thankful smile to Kevin but I didn't know how that turned out on my face because he seemed more concerned than anything. “Let's get back to the game shall we? We have four cups left on both sides. The first person to get all their cups empty, wins.” It was Emily's turn and when she threw the ball, it missed the cup entirely and rolled to the floor. “Oof. Too bad for team B. Back to team A.” Kevin spoke and Marissa's crony came forward and picked a ball. She was almost face-shit drunk but she threw the ball and it entered the cup.

They smile towards the camera and for a while my heart stops, anxious if they have sensed the drone. “How can they see it when it has no color and sound?” I assure myself, wiping the thought off. Aaron, the eldest, pulls forward and opens the huge container, then he pours the drink one by one on the four golden cups. As they start to drink, immediately a mystery-filled, suspenseful music starts to play. First question that comes into my mind is where it's playing from. When I search around and can't find a single cause, my mouth pulls up in a long gasp, covered with surprise.