Ordering Coffee

A One-Sentence Story

Starry Sky by Giotto di Bondone, 1305.

“Yeah, I’ll have the usual: a large low-fat latte with an extra shot and extra foam and cinnamon, and a cranberry walnut muffin or, if you’re already out of those, one of the apple apricot ones—no, wait... maybe I should skip the extra shot, I’m doing a presentation at work this morning and everyone is always complaining that I talk too fast, of course, I do talk really fast, with or without caffeine, but maybe I should cut back a little, just for this morning—so, yeah, just today, no extra shot, and did you see that article in the paper this morning about this new galaxy they’ve discovered, RD1 or some unimaginative name like that, and they’re calling it a “baby galaxy” because it’s so far away, around 12 billion light years, and since they think that the universe itself is about 13 billion years old, what they are seeing is the galaxy as it was just coming into being, just forming its first new stars, and, well, reading about it gave me this incredibly intense feeling of vertigo, you know, from trying to comprehend the unbelievable immensity of the universe and all the time that has passed since it came into being (thirteen billion years, I mean, how do you truly grasp a concept like that?), and so you start thinking about how short and meaningless your life is in the grand scheme of things and... oh great, thanks, no, that’s right, I don’t like the lid because the foam and the cinnamon glom onto the bottom of the lid and when I get up to my office and take the lid off, there’s hardly anything left on the coffee.”