Decaf

You fall through the door, choking on your own breath. The unwelcome aroma of roasted beans hits you like a bullet and you cling onto it desperately.
As always, not a soul in the packed Cafe flinches at your entry and only the barista looks your way. Out of the corner of your eye, you see him frown before reaching beneath the countertop and you croak out a "No!". Still on the floor, you fumble through your pockets and pull out the metal card. Holding it as high as you can, you wave the screen in his direction praying he isn't colorblind.

"See? It's green." You gasp, pulling yourself up. "Green. I'm safe." I'm not insane.

The barista stares at you for another second as if disagreeing with your inner voice before he gives a small nod and goes back to cleaning syringes. The relief that you feel, however, is short-lived as you feel the familiar itch crawling its way through your skin. You clamp your eyes shut trying hard to suppress it within you but it only grows worse and soon you can no longer hold back the shivering of your bones. Like always you try and persevere through it, and like always, you fail and bolt back out through the doors.

Once again, you wake up from a horrible quality of sleep drenched in sweat. You rub your eyes, trying to remember the last time you'd felt at peace. Before the air turned toxic? No, even before that you'd never rested well; always a million thoughts snatching away at your mind.

Sighing, you drag yourself off the bed, your body is still aching. It always aches when you wake up empty. You make your way to the bathroom and turn on the shower, the scalding hot liquid seems to burn away some of your desolation. You're in there for an hour, maybe two? You're not sure, you stopped watching the clock a long time ago, it never helped.
You pull on the first clothes your eyes land on and walk over to the shelf by the window. The humidifier is turned on and you stop in front of it, angling your head so that the scent of coffee floods your senses, a desperate attempt to dull your conscious. You were always desperate.

When the void brewed inside you by the fragrance gets too big to bear, you open your eyes, glazing them over to the window. Sometime in the midst of your aromatic therapy, it had begun to rain. You watch the raindrops as they slide down the window pane; some of them losing their weight until they become stagnant, and others swallowing the water left behind, growing bigger and faster. You watch the largest raindrop fall onto the sill, exploding into a thousand crystals in celebration. You wonder if the drops are racing, if the sill is the finish line, and you wonder; did the raindrops who were forced to run on dry glass feel cheated? Did they resent the drops that fell onto a wet path and had their life paved out for them on the remains of those who failed before? And why shouldn't they? They never asked to fall from the clouds, or to be pit against other raindrops.
Your gaze lands on another raindrop, this one slides down swiftly, faster than all the others, only to land into the drain pipe. You watch it mix into the discarded water, there is no celebration, no glittering burst of happiness. You wonder if you are that raindrop.

And then the humidifier breaks down.