BAD-025
Barista: Jean-Marc Chausson
Date: Jan-14-2020
Receipt: BAD-025
Subject: Omens
Another grave. Another door to the dead.
How many more until I stop counting?
A month ago, I lost the love of my life. My dearest friend. Six others followed. Their names scrawled in the margins of my mind—ink that will never fade. We buried the idea of them. What little remained had long since blown away. We spoke the words. We tried to make peace with the spaces they left behind. But even as we swept away the blood, another body was waiting. Even as the eulogies still hung in the air, the world reached for more. The Cafe’s doors never close. Not for mourning. Not for rest. Not for grief.
And now, here we stand—before another damned tomb.
The True Barrow looms, carved deep into the earth, a wound in the land that has never healed. It is old. It is patient. And it is waiting.
…How long has it been waiting for us?
I used to think there would be an end to it. That eventually, the last name would be spoken, the last grave filled, the last debt paid. But death isn’t something you escape. It’s a current, pulling us toward the inevitable. We bargain for time, for meaning, for a story worth telling before the ink runs dry. But in the end? The earth always takes us back.
And yet…
But I’m still here. Still standing. Still moving, even under the weight of dozens of dear ghosts. A light still burns. A star still shines.
If I must walk the road of the dead, I will not do it empty-handed. I will carve my light into the dark. I will rip meaning from the abyss. If death follows, then let it watch—watch as I defy everyone it has stolen from me.
Into the unknown. Again.