Flores Vitae: The Flower of Life

Chapter 1: The Espresso Machine

Rose

I had been working at the coffee shop for a couple of months, but it was not going well. I could handle the normal coffee orders. I had deciphered the computer-generated ordering slips, so I knew an iced coffee from a hot decaf, but I was still struggling with the fancy drinks made with the espresso machine. The lattes and the macchiatos and the americanos. The espresso machine was high tech and computerized, and as usual anything with technology seemed to act up around me. My boss was in the back office, probably glaring at me over the security monitors as I fumbled my way through the orders. I was trying, I really was.

The coffee-shop job was my latest in a long line of foiled attempts at employment. It was getting harder and harder to for me to find an employer who would overlook my abysmal history of being terminated, causing injuries, and destroying property. Not that any of it was on purpose. I was just really, really unlucky. I have no other way to explain it.

I got another order for a caramel iced latte. I had memorized the steps and the recipe for the drink. I approached the hulking espresso machine, put in the filter, twisted the handle, and selected the settings on the touch screen. I swear, that is all I did. The machine began to groan and make a very unnatural noise. The groaning became a hiss, and steam started spraying from places that steam was definitely NOT supposed to come out of. The hiss became a high-pitched squeal, and coffee beans and grounds started to fly. "Omigod, no!" I cried. I covered my face from the onslaught of beans and grounds and hot steam and tried to press the cancel button on the display panel. 

The panel blinked and said "Error."

"What have you done?" my boss came out of the back, his face contorted in horror as the machine continued to spew steam, coffee grounds and beans like a thing possessed, squealing and hissing and groaning like an angry dragon.

"I'm sorry Mr. Ridvan, I don't know what happened, the machine just..." I watched as a coffee bean seemed to fly in slow-motion and bounce off his wrinkled forehead. His nostrils flared open in his big nose, and his eyes bugged out. "I'll stop it!" I dropped down to my hands and knees, I ignored the steam that was burning my back through my blouse and crawled under the stainless steel counter until I found the plug and yanked it out.

The machine let out one final hiss and groan before it rested silently. Customers stared at us from their tables by the windows, holding their frappachinos half way to their mouths. Behind the counter it was a coffee explosion. Coffee grounds were plastered over the walls and all the beverage machinery. I was slipping in water and espresso beans as I crawled out from under the counter and got to my feet. I faced Mr. Ridvan, knowing exactly what was coming next.

Mr. Ridvan's face was purple. His shirt was spattered with coffee grounds. His hair which was usually so carefully combed back was standing on end. "You will give me the visor, and get out." I sighed. He was showing considerable restraint, all things considered. There was no use defending myself. No matter what I said, it was always my fault. I pulled the visor off my head and handed it over to him, and then went out to the break room to grab my backpack. I didn't bother clocking out, I just quietly slipped out the back door, and started to trudge back towards home.

I walked with my head down, thinking about hopeless things. How would I pay my rent now? The electric bill was already over due. What about food? My tiny efficiency apartment on the bad side of town wasn't much of a home, but I had no where else to go. No family, no friends. The more I thought about my mounting problems, the more hopeless I felt. Where would I apply for a job next? I had no skills, I had barely graduated from high school, and I had already gotten fired from just about every minimum wage entry level position in South City. Even the burger place had fired me for breaking the automated fry machine. I never cry, but I looked up at the sky and blinked hard a few times to push back that burning feeling.

While I was looking up at the sky like a moron, I tripped over a crack in the sidewalk, and went sprawling. I landed hard on my knee and my elbow. I was embarrassed, and hoped no one had noticed my clumsiness. I sat back and checked myself over. I'd torn my blouse and skinned my elbow, which was now bleeding a little, adding a crimson stain to the already coffee-soaked mess. Jeez, like it even mattered now. People walked around me, glancing at me and then looking away as though they were embarrassed to see me sitting there on the sidewalk. I stood up gracelessly, re-positioned my backpack, and started walking again.

As I stopped at an intersection, I felt someone staring at me. I looked around, and saw a woman in a car at the stop-light. She was absolutely beautiful, perfect red curls, the bluest eyes, pink pouting lips... and she was glaring at me like I had some how personally offended her. Then the light changed, horns honked, and the car moved on. I shrugged it off... she was probably just disgusted by my mess. I can't imagine what I must have looked like, dripping with coffee and spattered with grounds, my hair stuck to my face.

Four blocks later I came to my building. Its an old 5 story apartment block, and my little efficiency was on the 4th floor. The elevator had been broken since the 1990's, so I had to climb up four flights of stairs to get to my floor. The handrail had been pulled loose from the wall, and the cinder block walls had been painted and repainted with all kinds of graffiti, but I didn't really pay attention as I marched up. It didn't matter how many times I had climbed up these stairs, by the time I reached the top my thighs were burning, and I was out of breath. The fourth floor hallway smelled like weed, and I could hear my neighbors in 4C yelling and screaming and throwing things. But that was normal. Tomorrow I might walk up and find them making out in the hallway. I walked to my door, which was missing the 4B sign, twisted my key in the lock, and let myself in.

My apartment was a tiny efficiency. A kitchenette took up one corner, my twin sized bed was in the other. I had two mismatched thrift store chairs set up around a scratched coffee table I had found by the dumpster. I didn't own a TV or any kind of electronics. I did have boxes of books liked up against the wall, and my sketchpads and pencils were piled on the coffee table. On a TV stand in front of the only window was my spider plant, Phil, in its faux wood pot. Yes, my plant had a name, and it was nearly 15 years old. I had faithfully carried that plant from foster home to foster home, and even through a couple group homes without killing it. It was a sad testimony to my life that the only thing I had any emotional attachment to was a houseplant.

I came in and threw my backpack on the bed. I touched Phil's long green leaves and poked my finger in the soil to make sure it was still moist. Satisfied that my plant was happy, I stripped out of my blouse and through it straight into the garbage. The bra underneath was also beyond redemption. I kicked off my pants and headed for closet sized bathroom. 

 The shower stall was so narrow I barely fit in it, and the water pressure was so low that it took forever to get my long hair sufficiently wet to wash. By the time I actually finished to bathe, the water is always cold, but I was used to it. If there was one thing I wanted in my life, it was a bathroom with a real bath tub, the kind I could lay down in and soak in the hot water. Yeah, in my dreams. I grabbed a towel and wrapped my hair up in a towel turban, and the looked for my favorite pajamas; a ratty green tank top, and a pair of old jogging shorts.

It was already getting dark outside, so I flipped on the lights and went to my fridge. I swung open the door and looked at the empty shelves, and that overwhelming feeling of hopelessness washed over me again. Inside the freezer section was a half a pint of ice cream, which was a little freezer burnt. I scraped off ice crystals with my spoon, and sat down to contemplate life and death.

I know it sounds over dramatic to contemplate suicide just because I got fired again. But this was just the latest in life full painful and disappointing things. My mother had abandoned me at a church when I was just a baby. The priest had found me behind a rose bush. So they gave me the name Rose DeIglesia. I guess that is better than Jane Doe. I was passed around through the foster care system, I stayed with more than twenty different families and three group homes before I aged out. Some of the families were okay, some of them were horrible, but none of them ever wanted to keep me for long. I never fit in anywhere, and I had changed schools a couple times a year. I had thought life would be better when I graduated high school and got out on my own, but really it was just more of the same. I couldn't hold a job, I didn't have any friends. The only thing I could say about adult life - I haven't moved since I got this shitty little apartment. But rent was due, and I was once again broke and jobless. So what now? Homelessness? My life sucked, and I didn't see any hope of it getting better. I wasn't able to wrap my head around a life on the streets. How would I survive? I didn't even think I would be able to make a living as a prostitute. No man ever looked twice at me in my life. So as I scraped the bottom of my ice cream container, I was thinking really long and hard about ending my own life. My building was only 5 stories tall. If I went up on the roof and did a swan dive off the top, was the fall enough to kill me? I wanted to make sure I would actually be dead-dead... not just maimed and broken. Just when you think things can't get any worse, you fail at a suicide attempt and end up a quadriplegic wearing diapers and being fed baby formula through a tube. I wasn't afraid of dying. I was afraid of surviving.