233 - indigo

eans gently tumbled from the scooping spoon into the grinder. The sound was like soothing rainfall to Gary, a reassurance that coffee was not too far off now. He repeated the process, doubling up the strength of the cup of black liquid he would soon will into existence.

Without much thought to a process he had run through countless times before, he tossed the spoon into the bag of coffee beans and sealed it shut. Gary grabbed the lid of the grinder and repositioned it atop the electrical appliance, rotating it slightly until it fell into place.

His hands grasped the lid tightly to the grinder's frame, assuring that it stayed in place. Gary hated the idea of making a big mess of the kitchen with ground coffee particulate. His right thumb pressed down the button that was ergonomically placed under it.

As it had done reliably every morning before, the grinder sprung to life, the blades whirling at an incredible pace in a circular fashion. Gary had already set the appliance up to produce the ground coffee in the precise consistency that he preferred, but as was his habit, he never fully trusted a machine. He held the button down a few extra seconds, and he gave the grinder a few light shakes to help the blades catch any beans they might have missed.

The sounds of whole beans submitting to the power of rotating steel had initially filled the kitchen with a sharp cacophony, but quickly dulled to nothing but a light hum of blades whisking through air. The battle had been intense, but quick. Metal always won.

Gary tapped lightly upon the lid to force any coffee dust that had risen up to fall back into the pile with the rest of its ground up brethren. Then, he pulled the lid off, and savored the aroma that tickled his nostrils.

This moment, perhaps most of all, Gary enjoyed.

Nearby, his coffee-making apparatus was already prepared, awaiting the arrival of the solitary, ground ingredient. He inverted the grinder carefully above the funnel, allowing the ground coffee to flow into the cylinder where it would soon intermix with hot water and fulfill its purpose.

Gary tapped the side of the grinder, much as he had done to the lid moments before. The purpose was now the opposite, he wanted any fine particulate still clinging to the inside of the grinder to succumb to fate and join the blackish-brown pile already inside the coffee maker.

He rotated the grinder back upright, peering within. Somehow he had sensed something was amiss, that not enough ground coffee had made the journey from grinder to maker.

Inside the grinder remained a sizable amount of the dark particles, stuck up against the walls in a neatly-formed ring. Gary experienced this phenomena from time to time. He couldn't quite pin down why it happened. Certain brands of beans seemed to have a propensity towards it, and he also postulated that it had something to do with the quantity of beans placed in the grinder.

He would certainly need to extricate this ring of coffee dust. Without it, today's coffee would lack some of its punch, and left in the grinder, the day old grounds would spoil a fresh batch of beans.

Gary stuck his finger into the machine, making a circular sweep around the ring of ground coffee. As the flesh of his finger lightly brushed against one of the now-idle blades, he realized this was probably a bad idea.