(500 Word Fiction Challenge – Genre: Comedy, Action: a car driving backwards, Object: fingerless glove(s))

I didn’t move on to the next round, but this was a fun story to write 🙂

Joe shuffled toward his mocha 1982 Pinto rubbing sleep from his eyes. A few feet from the car, he glanced up to ensure he was still hobbling on course. His semi-conscious gaze met rays of sunlight as they crested the horizon. A combination of rage and profanity washed over him as the light seared his retinas. It had been too long since his last hit of bean juice. Squinting, he steadied his jitters and wrestled his thoughts back toward sanity. His gloved hand moved to shield against the agony of daybreak.

“Ah, thank you, Howard,” Joe spoke to the oversized wool glove. Howard had been Joe’s faithful protector as a barista shielding him as he wielded scalding hot pots of sanity. Now, tattered and worn, he had seen the worst of humanity. Howard’s coffee-stained fingers had been chewed off by a bean junkie just days prior. “Not much longer, old friend.”

Much of the city’s populace had descended into a state of apathetic rage when the coffee ran out. Now dozens of groggy denizens formed shambling mobs, skulking aimlessly from one abandoned Starbucks to another. Others struggled through their daily lives, semi-concious husks of their former selves. “Grounds…Grounds!” they cried. Their moans haunted Joe’s nightmares as the lack of caffeination forced him into a deep sleep each night.

He started the Pinto, backed out of the driveway, and sped toward the city’s water processing facility. Sunlight glinted off a canister dangling from his neck. Within it, the very last coffee bean — the cure. An Arabica bean so dense in glorious caffeine it could turn an army of sloths into Olympic track stars. If he could get it to the water supply, it might inoculate the masses against the agonies of consciousness… performing tasks and having unsolicited conversations before mid-day.

After navigating the wasteland of half-lucid souls. Joe was forced to slap fight his way through the fatigued workers, making his way through the narrow corridors under the glare of florescent lights. Joe finally arrived at a precipice at the heart of the facility that overlooked a junction that released fresh water into the city.

He shook off the haze creeping into his mind one last time as he ripped the canister from around his neck. Carefully, he dumped the bean into his gloved palm and reached out over the ledge.

“Eat it…” an ominous voice whispered over the raging torrent below.

“Howard?… What do you mean?!” Joe exclaimed. His friend had suggested the unthinkable.

“Imagine how it will feel when it hits your veins…” Betrayal hung thick in Howard’s voice.

The two argued over the fate of humanity for several minutes while Joe’s mind struggled to resist the decadence literally within his grasp.

As Joe’s resolve fractured, the city was saved by a burst of air from an air vent above them. Caught in the gust, Howard and the bean fell into the water below.

Joe, collapsed, smiling through tears, as the rising air became saturated with the aroma of glorious bean juice.

The city was saved… for now…